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I 


3  9153  00211134  4 


SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 


"The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man." 

Pope. 

"For,  as  I  take  it,  Universal  History,  the  his- 
tory of  what  man  has  accomplished  in  this  world, 
is  at  bottom  the  History  of  the  Great  Men  who 
have  worked  here." 

"Great  Men,  taken  up  in  any  way,  are  profit- 
able company." 

"The  History  of  the  World  is  the  Biography 
of  Great  Men." 

Carlyle. 

"The  true  nobility  of  nations  is  shown  by  the 
men  they  follow,  by  the  men  they  admire,  by 
the  ideals  of  character  and  conduct  they  place 
before  them." 

Lecky. 

"The  broadest  efficiency  of  great  men  begins 
after  their  death." 

Gustav  Schmoller. 


SEVEN 
GKEAT    STATESMEN 


IN  THE  WARFARE  OF  HUMANITY 
WITH  UNREASON 


BY 


ANDREW   DICKSON   WHITE 

y.T.  r>  (Yale  and  St.  Andrews),  L.H.D.  (Columbia),  Ph.Dr.  (Jena),  D.C.L.  (Oxford) 

Member  of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  Berlin 

late  president  and  professor  of  history  at  cornell  university 

author  of  "a  history  of  the  warfare  of  science  with  theology,"  etc.,  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1915 


Copyright,  1910,  by 
The  Century  Co. 

Copyright  1905,  1906,  1907,  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Compant 

Published  October,  1910 


TO 
GOLDWIN   SMITH 

SCHOLAR,   HISTORIAN,   STATESMAN, 
IN  REMEMBRANCE  OF  HIS  SELF-SACRIFICING  CHAMPIONSHIP 

OF    THE  AMERICAN  UNION  IN  ITS  TIME  OF   PERIL, 
OF  HIS  INSPIRING  TEACHINGS  AT  OXFORD  AND  AT  CORNELL, 

AND  OF  HIS  LONG  LIFE  DEVOTED 
TO  TRUTH,  JUSTICE,  RATIONAL  LIBERTY,  AND  RIGHT  REASON 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction ix 

Sarpi              1 3 

II 23 

III 37 

Grotius           1 55 

II 79 

III 103 

Thomasius      1 113 

II 132 

III 149 

Turgot           1 165 

II 189 

III 211 

Stein              1 241 

II 270 

III 293 

Cavour           1 319 

II 344 

III 366 

Bismarck       1 391 

II 410 

III 445 

IV 470 

V 497 

VI 514 

Index          537 


INTRODUCTION 

My  purpose  in  writing  these  essays  has  been  to  acquaint 
men  who  are  interested  in  the  bearings  of  modern  his- 
tory on  public  life  with  sundry  statesmen  whose  time 
was  devoted  not  to  seeking  office  or  to  winning  a  brief 
popular  fame  by  chicanery  or  pettifoggery,  but  to  serving 
the  great  interests  of  modern  states  and,  indeed,  of  uni- 
versal humanity.  I  would  present  these  statesmen  and 
their  work  as  especially  worthy  to  be  studied  by  those 
who  aspire  to  serve  their  country  in  any  way. 

It  may  be  asked  why  it  is  that  in  my  list  are  included 
neither  Americans  nor  Englishmen.  This  is  mainly 
because  the  great  leaders  of  our  own  country  and  of 
Great  Britain  have  already  been  fully  and  admirably 
portrayed  for  the  American  student  of  history,  who,  while 
he  may  know  much  regarding  these,  too  often  knows  very 
little  of  those  who  have  guided  the  great  peoples  of  Con- 
tinental Europe — whom  not  also  to  know  is  a  misfortune. 
But  there  is  another  and  a  more  personal  reason:  my 
early  years  abroad  were  spent  mainly  upon  the  European 
Continent,  and  public  duties  since  have  led  me  to  make 
prolonged  stays  in  various  Continental  states — France, 
Germany,  the  Netherlands,  Italy,  Russia — where  the 
study  of  Continental  statesmen  has  been  almost  forced 
upon  me. 

These  studies  of  European  history  have  been  cast 
into  biographical  form  because  it  has  always  seemed 
to  me  that  Carlyle  uttered  a  pregnant  truth  when  he  said 
that  the  history  of  any  country  is  in  the  biographies  of 
the  men  who  made  it. 

In  dealing  with  the  subjects  chosen  I  have  endeavored 

ix 


x  INTRODUCTION 

to  familiarize  myself  not  only  with  the  best  authorities, 
old  and  new,  but,  by  travel  and  by  acquaintance  with 
men  and  affairs,  to  bring  myself  as  much  as  possi- 
ble into  the  atmosphere  in  which  each  of  these  personages 
lived.  With  the  two  who  have  lived  in  my  own  time  I 
have  had  opportunity  for  something  more.  Cavour  I 
never  saw;  but  I  knew  well  the  Italy  of  his  time,  was 
present  in  Paris  during  the  Peace  Congress  in  1856, 
knew  some  of  the  men  who  then  sat  with  him,  have  since 
talked  much  with  various  colleagues  of  his  in  the  min- 
istries of  Piedmont  and  of  Italy,  and  had  frequent  con- 
versations regarding  him  with  his  near  friend  and  agent, 
Count  Nigra,  when  we  were  colleagues  at  the  first 
Peace  Conference  of  the  Hague.  Bismarck  it  was  my 
good  fortune  in  Germany  to  have  under  close  observa- 
tion from  1854  to  1856,  to  be  brought  into  official  rela- 
tions with  him  at  Berlin  during  the  years  1879,  1880, 
and  1881,  to  talk  with  him  from  time  to  time,  to  hear 
him  talk  with  others,  to  be  present  during  his  discus- 
sions of  important  questions  in  parliament,  to  see  some- 
thing of  his  family  life,  and,  both  then  and  during  a  later 
official  stay  of  nearly  six  years,  from  1897  to  1902,  to 
know  well  many  public  men  who  supported  him,  as  well 
as  many  who  opposed  him,  and  to  discuss  with  them  his 
aims  and  methods. 

While  I  have  given  references  which  will  enable  his- 
torical students  to  verify  my  statements  and  follow  them 
further,  I  have  constantly  had  in  mind  the  average  man 
intelligently  interested  in  political  affairs.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  to  each  of  these  personages  is  given  a 
somewhat  extended  historical  setting  which  may  enable 
any  reader  to  understand  his  environment,  the  men  and 
things  with  which  he  contended,  and  the  results  which  he 
sought  and  accomplished. 

I  desire  here  to  acknowledge  my  especial  indebtedness 
to  Professor  George  Lincoln  Burr  of  Cornell  University, 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

to  "William  Eoscoe  Thayer,  Esq.,  of  Cambridge,  Massa- 
chusetts, to  Professor  Edward  Payson  Evans  of  Munich, 
Germany,  and  to  Mr.  Frederick  A.  Cleveland,  now  study- 
ing at  the  University  of  Freiburg,  for  exceedingly  valuable 
suggestions  as  well  as  for  the  careful  revision  of  sundry 
chapters. 

A.  D.  W. 
Cornell  University, 
February,  1910. 


SAEPI 


SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

SARPI 


A  THOUGHTFUL  historian  tells  us  that,  between 
the  Middle  Ages  and  the  nineteenth  century,  Italy 
produced  three  great  men.  As  the  first  of  these,  he 
names  Machiavelli,  who,  he  says,  "taught  the  world  to 
understand  political  despotism  and  to  hate  it";  as  the 
second,  he  names  Sarpi,  who  "taught  the  world  after 
what  manner  the  Holy  Spirit  guides  the  Councils  of  the 
Church";  and  as  the  third,  Galileo,  who  "taught  the 
world  what  dogmatic  theology  is  worth  when  it  can  be 
tested  by  science." 

I  purpose  now  to  present  the  second  of  these.  As  a 
man,  he  was  by  far  the  greatest  of  the  three  and,  in 
various  respects,  the  most  interesting;  for  he  not  only 
threw  a  bright  light  into  the  most  important  general 
council  of  the  Church  and  revealed  to  Christendom  the 
methods  which  there  prevailed, — in  a  book  which  remains 
one  of  the  half-dozen  classic  histories  of  the  world, — but 
he  fought  the  most  bitter  fight  for  humanity  ever  known 
in  any  Latin  nation,  and  won  a  victory  by  which  the 
whole  world  has  profited  ever  since.  Moreover,  he  was 
one  of  the  two  foremost  Italian  statesmen  since  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  other  being  Cavour. 

He  was  born  at  Venice  in  1552,  and  it  may  concern 
those  who  care  to  note  the  subtle  interweaving  of  the 
warp  and  woof  of  history  that  the  birth  year  of  this  most 
resourceful  foe  that  Jesuitism  ever  had  was  the  death 
year  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  the  noblest  of  Jesuit  apostles. 

It  may  also  interest  those  who  study  the  more  evident 

3 


4  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

factors  of  cause  and  effect  in  human  affairs  to  note 
that,  like  most  strong  men,  he  had  a  strong  mother ;  that, 
while  his  father  was  a  poor  shopkeeper  who  did  little  and 
died  young,  his  mother  was  wise  and  serene. 

From  his  earliest  boyhood,  he  showed  striking  gifts 
and  characteristics.  Those  who  knew  him  testify  that 
he  never  forgot  a  face  once  seen,  could  take  in  the  main 
contents  of  a  page  at  a  glance,  spoke  little,  rarely  ate 
meat,  and,  until  his  last  years,  never  drank  wine. 

Brought  up,  after  the  death  of  his  father,  first  by  his 
uncle,  a  priest,  and  then  by  Capella,  a  Servite  monk,  in 
something  better  than  the  usual  priestly  fashion,  he 
became  known,  while  yet  in  his  boyhood,  as  a  theological 
prodigy.  Disputations  in  his  youth,  especially  one  at 
Mantua,  where,  after  the  manner  of  the  time,  he  suc- 
cessfully defended  several  hundred  theses  against  all 
comers,  attracted  wide  attention,  so  that  the  Bishop  gave 
him  a  professorship,  and  the  Duke,  who,  like  some  other 
crowned  heads  of  those  days — notably  Henry  VIII  and 
James  I — liked  to  dabble  in  theology,  made  him  a  court 
theologian.  But  the  duties  of  this  position  were  uncon- 
genial: a  flippant  duke,  fond  of  putting  questions  which 
the  wisest  theologian  could  not  answer,  and  laying  out 
work  which  the  young  scholar  evidently  thought  futile, 
wearied  him.  He  returned  to  the  convent  of  the  Servites 
at  Venice,  and  became,  after  a  few  years'  novitiate,  a 
friar,  changing,  at  the  same  time,  his  name ;  so  that,  hav- 
ing been  baptized  Peter,  he  now  became  Paul. 

His  career  soon  revealed  another  cause  of  his  return: 
he  evidently  felt  the  same  impulse  which  stirred  his  con- 
temporaries, Lord  Bacon  and  Galileo;  for  he  began 
devoting  himself  to  the  whole  range  of  scientific  and 
philosophical  studies,  especially  to  mathematics,  physics, 
astronomy,  anatomy,  and  physiology.  In  these  he  became 
known  as  an  authority,  and  before  long  was  recognized 
as  such  throughout  Europe.    It  is  claimed,  and  it  is  not 


SARPI  5 

improbable,  that  he  anticipated  Harvey  in  discovering 
the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  that  he  was  the  fore- 
runner of  noted  discoverers  in  magnetism.  Unfortu- 
nately the  loss  of  the  great  mass  of  his  papers  by  the 
fire  which  destroyed  his  convent  in  1769  forbids  any  full 
estimate  of  his  work;  but  it  is  certain  that  among  those 
who  sought  his  opinion  and  advice  were  such  great  dis- 
coverers as  Acquapendente,  Galileo,  Torricelli,  and  Gil- 
bert of  Colchester,  and  that  every  one  of  these  referred 
to  him  as  an  equal,  and  indeed  as  a  master.  It  seems 
also  established  that  it  was  he  who  first  discovered  the 
valves  of  the  veins,  that  he  made  known  the  most  beau- 
tiful function  of  the  irisr — its  contractility, — and  that 
various  surmises  of  his  regarding  heat,  light,  and  sound 
have  since  been  wrought  into  scientific  truths.  It  is  alto- 
gether likely  that,  had  he  not  been  drawn  from  scientific 
pursuits  by  his  duties  as  a  statesman,  he  would  have 
ranked  among  the  great  investigators  and  discoverers, 
not  only  of  Italy,  but  of  the  world. 

He  also  studied  political  and  social  problems,  and  he 
arrived  at  one  conclusion  which,  though  now  trite,  was 
then  novel, — the  opinion  that  the  aim  of  punishment 
should  not  be  vengeance,  but  reformation.  In  these  days 
and  in  this  country,  where  one  of  the  most  serious  of 
evils  is  undue  lenity  to  crime,  this  opinion  may  be  im- 
puted to  him  as  a  fault;  but  in  those  days,  when  torture 
was  the  main  method  in  procedure  and  in  penalty,  his 
declaration  was  honorable  both  to  his  head  and  his  heart. 

With  all  his  devotion  to  books,  he  found  time  to  study 
men.  Even  at  school,  he  seemed  to  discern  those  best 
worth  knowing.  They  discerned  something  in  him  also ; 
so  that  close  relations  were  formed  between  him  and  such 
leaders  as  Contarini  and  Morosini,  with  whom  he  after- 
wards stood  in  great  emergencies. 

Important  missions  were  entrusted  to  him.  Five  times 
he  visited  Rome  to  adjust  perplexing  differences  between 


6  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

the  papal  power  and  various  interests  at  Venice.  He 
"was  rapidly  advanced  through  most  of  the  higher  offices 
in  his  order,  and  in  these  he  gave  a  series  of  decisions 
which  won  him  the  respect  of  all  entitled  to  form  an 
opinion. 

Naturally  he  was  thought  of  for  high  place  in  the 
Church,  and  was  twice  presented  for  a  bishopric;  but 
each  time  he  was  rejected  at  Rome, — partly  from  family 
claims  of  other  candidates,  partly  from  suspicions  re- 
garding his  orthodoxy.  It  was  objected  that  he  did  not 
find  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  the  first  verse 
of  Genesis;  that  he  corresponded  with  eminent  men  of 
science  in  England  and  Germany,  even  though  they  were 
heretics;  that  he  was  not  averse  to  reforms;  that,  in 
short,  he  was  not  inclined  to  wallow  in  the  slime  from 
which  had  crawled  forth  such  huge  incarnations  of  evil 
as  John  XXIII,  Sixtus  IV,  Alexander  VI,  and  Julius  II. 

His  Jesuit  detractors  have  been  wont  to  represent  him 
as  seeking  vengeance  for  his  non-promotion;  but  his 
after  career  showed  amply  that  personal  grievances  had 
little  effect  upon  him.  It  is  indeed  not  unlikely  that,  when 
he  saw  bishoprics  for  which  he  knew  himself  well  fitted 
given  as  sops  to  poor  creatures  utterly  unfit  in  mind  or 
morals,  he  may  have  had  doubts  regarding  the  part 
taken  by  the  Almighty  in  selecting  them;  but  he  was 
reticent,  and  kept  on  with  his  work.  In  his  cell  at  Santa 
Fosca,  he  quietly  and  steadily  devoted  himself  to  his 
cherished  studies;  but  he  continued  to  study  more  than 
books  or  inanimate  nature.  He  was  neither  a  bookworm 
nor  a  pedant.  On  his  various  missions  he  met  and  dis- 
coursed with  churchmen  and  statesmen  concerned  in  the 
greatest  transactions  of  his  time,  notably  at  Mantua  with 
Oliva,  secretary  of  one  of  the  foremost  ecclesiastics  at 
the  Council  of  Trent ;  at  Milan  with  Cardinal  Borromeo, 
the  noblest  of  all  who  ever  sat  in  that  assemblage;  in 
Rome  and  elsewhere  with  Arnauld  du  Ferrier,  who  had 


SARPI  7 

been  French  Ambassador  at  the  Council,  with  Cardinal 
Santa  Severina,  head  of  the  Inquisition,  with  Castagna, 
afterward  Pope  Urban  VII,  and  with  Cardinal  Bellar- 
mine,  afterward  Sarpi's  strongest  and  noblest  opponent. 

Nor  was  this  all.  He  was  not  content  with  books  or 
conversations;  steadily  he  went  on  collecting,  collating, 
and  testing  original  documents  bearing  upon  the  great 
events  of  his  time.  The  result  of  all  this  the  world  was 
to  see  later. 

He  had  arrived  at  middle  life  and  won  wide  recogni- 
tion as  a  scholar,  scientific  investigator,  and  jurist,  when 
there  came  the  supreme  moment  of  a  struggle  which  had 
involved  Europe  for  centuries, — a  struggle  interesting 
not  only  the  Italy  and  Europe  of  those  days,  but  uni- 
versal humanity  for  all  time. 

During  the  period  following  the  fall  of  the  Koman 
Empire  in  the  West  there  had  been  evolved  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Eoman  Bishop.  It  had  many  vicissitudes. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  days  of  St.  Leo  and  St.  Gregory, 
it  based  its  claims  upon  noble  assertions  of  right  and 
justice,  and  sometimes,  as  in  the  hands  of  Innocent  VIII 
and  Pius  V,  it  sought  to  force  its  way  by  fanaticism. 
Sometimes  it  strengthened  its  authority  by  real  services 
to  humanity,  and  sometimes  by  such  frauds  as  the 
Forged  Decretals.  Sometimes,  as  under  Popes  like 
Gregory  VII  and  Innocent  III,  it  laid  claim  to  the  mas- 
tership of  the  world,  and  sometimes,  as  with  the  majority 
of  the  pontiffs  during  the  two  centuries  before  the 
Eeformation,  it  became  mainly  the  appanage  of  a  party 
or  faction  or  family. 

Throughout  all  this  history,  there  appeared  in  the 
Church  two  great  currents  of  efficient  thought.  On  one 
side  had  been  developed  a  theocratic  theory,  giving  the 
papacy  a  power  supreme  in  temporal  as  well  as  in  spir- 
itual matters  throughout  the  world.  Leaders  in  this 
during  the  Middle  Ages  were  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and 


8  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

the  Dominicans;  leaders  in  Sarpi 's  day  were  the  Jesuits, 
represented  especially  in  the  treatises  of  Bellarmine  at 
Eome  and  in  the  speeches  of  Laynez  at  the  Council  of 
Trent.1 

But  another  theory,  hostile  to  the  despotism  of  the 
Church  over  the  State,  had  been  developed  through  the 
Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance ; — it  had  been  strength- 
ened mainly  by  the  utterances  of  such  men  as  Dante, 
Egidio  Colonna,  John  of  Paris,  Ockham,  Marsilio  of 
Padua,  and  Laurentius  Valla.  Sarpi  ranged  himself 
with  the  latter  of  these  forces.  Though  deeply  religious, 
he  recognized  the  God-given  right  of  earthly  governments 
to  discharge  their  duties  independent  of  church  control. 

Among  the  many  centres  of  this  struggle  was  Venice. 
She  was  splendidly  religious — as  religion  was  then  under- 
stood. She  was  made  so  by  her  whole  environment. 
From  the  beginning  she  had  been  a  seafaring  power,  and 
seafaring  folk,  from  their  constant  wrestle  with  dangers 
ill  understood,  are  prone  to  seek  and  find  supernatural 
forces.  Nor  was  this  all.  Later,  when  she  had  become 
rich,  powerful,  luxurious,  and  licentious,  her  most  power- 
ful citizens,  and  especially  their  wives,  felt  a  need  of 
atoning  for  their  many  sins  by  splendid  religious  founda- 
tions. So  her  people  came  to  live  in  an  atmosphere  of 
religious  observance,  and  the  bloom  and  fruitage  of  their 
religious  hopes  and  fears  are  seen  in  the  whole  history 
of  Venetian  art, — from  the  rude  sculptures  at  Torcello 
and  the  naive  mosaics  at  San  Marco  to  the  glowing  altar- 
pieces  and  ceilings  of  John  Bellini,  Titian,  and  Tintoretto 
and  the  illuminations  of  the  Grimani  Psalter.  No  class 
in    Venice    rose   above    this    environment.     Doges    and 

i  This  has  been  admirably  shown  by  Horatio  Brown  in  his  Taylorian 
Lecture,  1895  (pp.  229-234,  in  volume  for  1889-99).  For  the  great  speech 
of  Laynez  supporting  the  authority  of  the  Papacy  as  against  the  Episco- 
pate, as  well  as  the  discourses  on  the  other  side,  see  Sarpi:  History  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  Nathanael  Brent's  translation,  London,  1G20,  lib.  vii,  pp. 
C10-G14. 


SARPI  9 

Senators  were  as  susceptible  to  it  as  were  the  humblest 
fishermen  on  the  Lido.  In  every  one  of  those  glorious 
frescoes  in  the  corridors  and  halls  of  the  Ducal  Palace 
which  commemorate  the  victories  of  the  Republic,  the 
triumphant  Doge  or  Admiral  or  General  is  seen  on  his 
knees  making  acknowledgment  of  the  divine  aid.  On 
every  Venetian  sequin,  from  the  days  when  Venice  was 
a  power  throughout  the  earth  to  that  fatal  year  when  the 
young  Bonaparte  tossed  the  Republic  over  to  the  House 
of  Austria,  the  Doge,  crowned  and  robed,  kneels  humbly 
before  the  Saviour,  the  Virgin,  or  St.  Mark.  In  the  Hall 
of  the  Great  Council,  the  most  sumptuous  room  in  the 
world,  there  is  spread  above  the  heads  of  the  Doge  and 
Senators  and  Councilors,  as  an  incentive  to  the  discharge 
of  their  duties  on  earth,  a  representation  of  the  blessed  in 
Heaven. 

From  highest  to  lowest,  the  Venetians  lived,  moved, 
and  had  their  being  in  this  religious  environment,  and, 
had  their  Republic  been  loosely  governed,  its  external 
policy  would  have  been  largely  swayed  by  this  all-pervad- 
ing religious  feeling,  and  would  have  become  the  play- 
thing of  the  Roman  Court.  But  a  republic  has  never 
been  maintained  save  by  the  delegation  of  great  powers 
to  its  chosen  leaders.  It  was  the  remark  of  one  of  the 
foremost  American  Democrats  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
a  man  who  received  the  highest  honors  which  his  party 
could  bestow,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
was  made,  not  to  promote  Democracy,  but  to  check  it. 
This  statement  is  true,  and  it  is  as  true  of  the  Venetian 
Constitution  as  of  the  American.1 

But  while  both  the  republics  recognized  the  necessity 
of  curbing  Democracy,  the  difference  between  the  means 
employed  was  world-wide.  The  founders  of  the  Amer- 
ican  Republic   gave   vast  powers    to   a   President   and 

1  See  Horatio  Seymour's  noted  article  in  the  "North  American  Review 
(1878). 


10  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

unheard-of  authority  to  a  Supreme  Court;  in  the  Vene- 
tian Eepublic  the  Doge  was  gradually  stripped  of  power, 
and  there  was  evolved  the  mysterious  and  unlimited  au- 
thority of  the  Senate  and  Council  of  Ten. 

In  these  sat  the  foremost  Venetians,  thoroughly  im- 
bued with  the  religious  spirit  of  their  time;  but  men  of 
the  world,  trained  in  the  politics  of  all  Europe  and  espe- 
cially of  Italy. 

In  his  " Prince"  Machiavelli  tells  us  that  "The  peo- 
ples nearest  to  Rome  are  those  having  least  faith  in  it," 
and  Guizot  in  his  History  of  Civilization  has  shown  how 
Crusaders  who  went  to  the  Orient  by  way  of  Italy  and 
saw  the  papacy  near  at  hand  came  back  skeptics.  This 
same  influence  shaped  the  statesmen  of  Venice.  The 
Venetian  Ambassadors  were  the  foremost  in  Europe. 
Their  "Relations"  are  still  studied  as  the  clearest, 
shrewdest,  and  wisest  statements  regarding  the  men  and 
events  in  Europe  of  their  time.  All  were  noted  for  skill ; 
but  the  most  skillful  were  kept  on  duty  at  Rome.  There 
was  the  source  of  danger.  The  Doges,  Senators,  and 
controlling  Councilors  had,  as  a  rule,  served  in  these  em- 
bassies, and  they  had  formed  lucid  judgments  as  to  Ital- 
ian courts  in  general  and  as  to  the  Roman  Court  in 
particular.  No  men  had  known  the  Popes  and  the  Curia 
more  thoroughly.  They  saw  Innocent  VIII  buy  the 
papacy  for  money.  They  had  been  at  the  Vatican  when 
Alexander  VI  had  won  renown  as  a  secret  murderer. 
They  saw,  close  at  hand,  the  merciless  cruelty  of  Julius  II. 
They  had  carefully  noted  the  crimes  of  Sixtus  IV,  which 
culminated  in  the  assassination  of  Julian  de'  Medici  be- 
neath the  dome  of  Florence  at  the  moment  the  Host  was 
uplifted.  They  had  sat  near  Leo  X  while  he  enjoyed  the 
obscenities  of  the  Calandria  and  the  Mandr agora, — plays 
which,  in  the  most  corrupt  of  modern  cities,  would,  in  our 
day,  be  stopped  by  the  police.     No  wonder  that,  in  one 


SARPI  11 

of  their  dispatches,  they  speak  of  Rome  as  "the  sewer 
of  the  world."1 

Naturally,  then,  while  the  religion  of  the  Venetians 
showed  itself  in  wonderful  monuments  of  every  sort,  their 
practical  sense  was  shown  by  a  steady  opposition  to 
papal  encroachments. 

Of  this  combination  of  zeal  for  religion  with  hostility 
to  ecclesiasticism  we  have  striking  examples  throughout 
the  history  of  the  Republic.  While  most  other  European 
powers  suffered  ecclesiastics  to  take  control  of  Public 
Instruction,  Venice  kept  this  control  in  her  own  hands, 
only  leaving  to  the  Church  the  direction  of  theological 
studies.  While,  in  every  other  European  state,  cardi- 
nals, bishops,  priests,  and  monks  were  given  leading 
parts  in  civil  administration  and,  in  some  states,  a  mo- 
nopoly of  civil  honors,  the  Venetian  Republic  not  only 
excluded  all  ecclesiastics  from  such  posts,  but,  in  cases 
which  touched  Church  interests,  she  excluded  even  the 
relatives  of  ecclesiastics.  When  Church  authority  de- 
creed that  commerce  should  not  be  maintained  with  infi- 
dels and  heretics,  the  Venetian  merchants  continued  to 
deal  with  Turks,  Pagans,  Germans,  Englishmen,  and 
Dutchmen  as  before.  When  the  Church  decreed  that  the 
taking  of  interest  for  money  was  sin,  and  great  theo- 
logians published  in  Venice  some  of  their  mightiest  trea- 
tises demonstrating  this  view  from  Holy  Scripture  and 
the  Fathers,  the  Venetians  continued  borrowing  and  lend- 
ing money  on  usance.  When  efforts  were  made  to  en- 
force that  tremendous  instrument  for  the  consolidation  of 
Papal  power,  the  bull  In  Coena  Domini,  Venice  evaded 
and  even  defied  it.     When  mediaeval  and  theological  preju- 

1  For  Sixtus  IV  and  his  career,  with  the  tragedy  in  the  Cathedral  of 
Florence,  see  Villari's  Machiavelli  and  His  Times,  English  translation,  vol. 
ii,  pp.  341,  342.  For  the  passage  in  the  dispatches  referred  to,  vide  ibid., 
vol.  i,  p.  198. 


12  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

dice  hampered  most  of  the  European  universities,  Ven- 
ice gave  her  University  of  Padua  scope  and  freedom. 
"When  Sixtus  V,  strongest  of  all  modern  Popes,  had 
brought  all  his  powers,  temporal  and  spiritual,  to  bear 
against  Henry  IV  of  France  as  an  excommunicated  here- 
tic, and  seemed  ready  to  hurl  the  thunderbolts  of  the 
Church  against  any  government  which  should  recognize 
him,  the  Venetian  Eepublic  not  only  recognized  him,  but 
treated  his  ambassador  with  especial  courtesy.  When 
the  other  Catholic  powers,  save  France,  yielded  to  Papal 
mandates  and  sent  no  representatives  to  the  coronation 
of  James  I  of  England,  Venice  was  represented  there. 
When  Pope  after  Pope  issued  diatribes  against  tolera- 
tion, the  Venetians  steadily  tolerated,  in  their  several 
sorts  of  worship,  Jews  and  Greeks,  Mohammedans  and 
Armenians,  with  Protestants  of  every  sort  who  came  to 
them  on  business.  When  the  Roman  Index  forbade  the 
publication  of  most  important  works  of  leading  authors, 
Venice  demanded  and  obtained  for  her  printers  rights 
which  were  elsewhere  denied.1 

As  to  the  religious  restrictions  which  touched  trade, 
the  Venetians  in  their  public  councils,  and  indeed  the  peo- 
ple at  large,  had  come  to  know  perfectly  what  the  Papal 
theory  meant, — with  some  of  its  promoters,  fanaticism, 
but  with  the  controlling  power  at  Rome,  revenue, — reve- 
nue to  be  derived  from  retailing  dispensations  to  infringe 
the  holy  rules. 

This  peculiar  antithesis,  nowhere  more  striking  than 
at  Venice — on  the  one  side,  religious  fears  and  hopes; 

i  For  a  striking  summary,  by  a  devout  Catholic,  of  various  other  re- 
strictions upon  ecclesiastics  in  Venice,  see  Cantil:  Les  Ildire'tiques  d'ltalie, 
vol.  iv,  117,  et  seq.  For  a  good  and  short  statement  regarding  the 
hearty  friendship  between  Venice  and  Henry  IV.  of  France,  despite  the 
Vatican,  see  De  Flassan:  Bistoire  de  la  Diplomatic  Francaise,  TVe  PCriode, 
livre  2.  For  the  Venetian  struggle  against  the  Church  in  the  matter  of 
taking  interest  on  loans,  see  The  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology,  by  the 
present  writer,  vol.  ii,  pp.  279  and  following. 


SARPI  13 

on  the  other,  keen  insight  into  the  ways  of  ecclesiasticism 
— led  to  peculiar  compromises.  The  bankers  who  had 
taken  interest  upon  money,  the  merchants  who  had 
traded  with  Moslems  and  heretics,  frequently  thought  it 
best  in  their  last  hours  to  perfect  their  title  to  salvation 
by  turning  over  goodly  estates  to  the  Church.  Under 
the  sway  of  this  feeling,  and  especially  of  the  terrors  in- 
fused by  priests  at  deathbeds,  mortmain  had  become  in 
Venice,  as  in  many  other  parts  of  the  world,  one  of  the 
most  serious  of  evils.  Thus  it  was  that  the  clergy  came 
to  possess  between  one-fourth  and  one-third  of  the  whole 
territory  of  the  Republic,  and  in  its  Bergamo  district 
more  than  one-half;  and  all  this  exempt  from  taxation. 
Hence  it  was  that  the  Venetian  Senate  found  it  neces- 
sary to  devise  a  legal  check  which  should  make  such  ab- 
sorption of  estates  by  the  Church  more  difficult. 

There  was  a  second  cause  of  trouble.  In  that  religious 
atmosphere  of  Venice,  monastic  orders  of  every  sort 
grew  luxuriantly,  not  only  absorbing  more  and  more 
property  to  be  held  by  the  dead  hand,  but  absorbing  more 
and  more  men  and  women,  and  thus  depriving  the  state 
of  any  healthful  and  normal  service  from  them.  Here, 
too,  the  Senate  thought  it  best  to  interpose  a  check:  it 
insisted  that  no  new  structures  for  religious  orders  be 
erected  without  consent  of  the  State. 

Yet  another  question  flamed  forth.  Of  the  monks 
swarming  through  the  city,  many  were  luxurious  and 
some  were  criminal.  On  these  last  the  Venetian  Senate 
determined  to  lay  its  hands,  and  in  the  first  years  of 
the  seventeenth  century  all  these  burning  questions  cul- 
minated in  the  seizure  and  imprisonment  of  two  ecclesias- 
tics charged  with  various  high  crimes, — among  these  rape 
and  murder. 

There  had  just  come  to  the  papal  throne  Camillo  Bor- 
ghese,  Paul  V, — strong,  bold,  determined,  with  the  high- 
est possible  theory  of  his  rights  and  duties.     In  view  of 


14  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

his  duty  toward  himself,  he  lavished  the  treasures  of  the 
faithful  upon  his  family,  until  it  became  the  richest  which 
had  yet  risen  in  Rome;  in  view  of  his  duty  toward  the 
Church,  he  built  superbly, — evidences  of  the  spirit  in 
which  he  wrought  being  to  this  day  his  gorgeous  tomb  at 
Santa  Maria  Maggiore  and  his  name,  in  enormous  let- 
ters, still  spread  across  the  facade  of  St.  Peter's.  As  to 
his  rights,  he  accepted  fully  the  theories  and  practices  of 
his  boldest  predecessors,  and  in  this  he  had  good  war- 
rant; for  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Bellarmine  had  fur- 
nished him  with  convincing  arguments  that  he  was 
divinely  authorized  to  rule  the  civil  powers  of  Italy  and 
of  the  world.1 

Moreover  there  was,  in  his  pride,  something  akin  to 
fanaticism.  He  had  been  elected  by  one  of  those  sud- 
den movements,  as  well  known  in  American  caucuses  as 
in  Papal  conclaves,  when,  after  a  deadlock,  all  the  old 
candidates  are  thrown  over,  and  the  choice  suddenly  falls 
on  a  new  man.  The  cynical  observer  may  point  to  this 
as  showing  that  the  laws  governing  elections,  under  such 
circumstances,  are  the  same,  whether  in  party  caucuses 
or  in  Church  councils ;  but  Pope  Paul  saw  in  this  case  the 
direct  intervention  of  the  Almighty,  and  his  disposition 
to  magnify  his  office  was  vastly  increased  thereby.  He 
was  especially  strenuous,  and  one  of  his  earliest  public 
acts  was  to  send  to  the  gallows  a  poor  author,  who,  in 
an  unpublished  work,  had  spoken  severely  regarding  one 
of  Paul's  predecessors. 

The  Venetian  laws  checking  mortmain,  taxing  Church 
property,  and  requiring  the  sanction  of  the  Republic  be- 

i  For  details  of  these  cases  of  the  two  monks,  see  Pascolato,  Fra  Paolo 
Sarpi,  Milano,  1893,  pp.  12G-128.  For  the  Borghese  avarice,  see  Ranke's 
Popes,  vol.  iii,  pp.  9-20,  also  Sismondi,  Bipubliquea  Italiennes,  Paris,  1840, 
vol.  x,  pp.  259-260.  For  the  development  of  Pope  Paul's  theory  of  gov- 
ernment, see  Ranke,  vol.  ii,  p.  345,  and  note,  in  which  Bcllarminc's  doc- 
trine is  cited  textually;  also  Bellarmine's  Sclbatbiographie,  hcrausgcgebcn 
von  Dbllinger  und  Iteusch,  Bonn,  1887,  pp.  181  et  seq. 


SARPI  15 

fore  the  erection  of  new  churches  and  monasteries 
greatly  angered  him ;  but  the  crowning  vexation  was  the 
seizure  of  the  two  clerics.  This  aroused  him  fully.  He 
at  once  sent  orders  that  they  be  delivered  up  to  him,  that 
apology  be  made  for  the  past  and  guarantees  given  for 
the  future, and  notice  was  served  that,in  case  the  Republic 
did  not  speedily  obey  these  orders,  the  Pope  would  ex- 
communicate its  leaders  and  lay  an  interdict  upon  its 
people.  It  was  indeed  a  serious  contingency.  For  many 
years  the  new  Pope  had  been  known  as  a  hard  ecclesiasti- 
cal lawyer,  and,  now  that  he  had  arrived  at  the  supreme 
power,  he  had  evidently  determined  to  enforce  the  high 
mediaeval  supremacy  of  the  Church  over  the  State.  Ev- 
erything betokened  his  success.  In  France  he  had  broken 
down  all  opposition  to  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of 
Trent.  In  Naples,  when  a  magistrate  had  refused  to 
disobey  the  civil  law  at  the  bidding  of  priests,  and  the 
viceroy  had  supported  the  magistrate,  Pope  Paul  had 
forced  both  viceroy  and  magistrate  to  comply  with  his  will 
by  threats  of  excommunication.  In  every  part  of  Italy, 
— in  Malta,  in  Savoy,  in  Parma,  in  Lucca,  in  Genoa, 
and  finally  even  in  Spain — he  had  pettifogged,  bullied, 
threatened,  until  his  opponents  had  given  way.  Every- 
where he  was  triumphant ;  and  while  he  was  in  the  mood 
which  such  a  succession  of  triumphs  would  give  he 
turned  toward  Venice.1 

There  was  little,  indeed,  to  encourage  the  Venetians  to 
resist ;  for,  while  the  interests  of  other  European  powers 
were  largely  the  same  as  theirs,  current  political  in- 
trigues seemed  likely  to  bring  Spain  and  even  France 
into  a  league  with  the  Vatican. 

Beneficial  as  was  the  regeneration  which  Christianity 
brought  to  the  world,  the  Church  soon  became  and  long 

i  For  letters  showing  the  craven  submission  of  Philip  III  of  Spain 
at  this  time,  see  Cornet,  Paolo  V  e  la  Republica  Veneta,  Vienna,  1859, 
p.  285. 


16  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

remained,  in  two  things  of  vast  import,  more  barbarous 
than  Roman  paganism ;  and  about  these  two  things  raged 
during  centuries  a  war  for  right  reason.  The  first  of 
these  was  torture.  Under  the  Roman  Empire  limits  to  its 
cruelties  had  been  gradually  imposed  in  obedience  to 
humanity  and  reason,  but  the  Christian  Church,  as  soon 
as  its  priesthood  had  gained  control,  cast  aside  all  its 
previous  mild  precepts  regarding  the  limitation  of  tor- 
ture in  legal  procedure, — taking  the  ground  that  witches 
and  heretics  were  especially  aided  by  Satan  to  resist  it, — 
and  this  cruel  doctrine  was  soon  extended  into  the  ordi- 
nary courts  of  law. 

The  second  of  these  developments  of  unreason  con- 
cerned punishment  for  ecclesiastical  offences.  The  old 
Roman  law  had  been  especially  careful  not  to  punish  the 
innocent  with  the  guilty;  but  the  Church,  as  soon  as  it 
had  arrived  at  full  power,  ceased  to  content  itself  with 
excommunicating  the  guilty  and  began  laying  penalties 
over  large  districts  and  even  whole  nations.1 

To  a  people  so  devoted  to  commerce,  yet  so  religious, 
as  the  Venetians,  the  threat  of  an  interdict  was  serious 
indeed.  Open  church  services  were  to  cease;  the  peo- 
ple at  large,  no  matter  how  faithful,  were  to  be  as  brute 
beasts — not  to  be  properly  married,  to  be  denied 
various  sacramental  consolations,  not  to  be  decently 
buried;  other  Christian  peoples  were  to  be  forbidden  all 
dealings  with  them,  under  pain  of  excommunication; 
their  commerce  might  be  delivered  over  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  any  and  every  other  nation;  their  merchant 
ships  were  to  be  as  corsairs;  their  cargoes,  the  legiti- 
mate prey  of  all  Christendom;  and  their  people,  on  sea 

i  As  to  the  barbarism  fostered  by  the  Church,  when  it  came  to  full 
power,  as  regards  torture,  see  authorities  cited  in  my  essay  on  Thomasius. 
As  to  barbarism  in  the  matter  of  ecclesiastical  offences,  see  E.  B.  Krehbiel, 
professor  at  Stanford  University:  The  Interdict,  Its  History  and  Operation 
(Prize  Essay  of  the  American  Historical  Association  for  1907),  Washing- 
ton, 1909. 


SARPI  17 

and  land,  to  be  held  as  enemies  of  the  human  race.  To 
this  was  added,  throughout  the  whole  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple, a  vague  sense  of  awful  penalties  awaiting  them  in 
the  next  world.  Despite  all  this,  the  Republic  persisted 
in  asserting  its  right. 

Just  at  this  moment  came  a  diplomatic  passage  be- 
tween Pope  and  Senate,  like  a  farce  before  a  tragedy; 
and  it  has  historical  significance,  as  showing  what  re- 
sourceful heads  were  at  the  service  of  either  side. 
The  Doge  Grimani  having  died,  the  Vatican  thought  to 
score  a  point  by  promptly  sending  notice  through  its 
Nuncio  to  Venice  that  no  new  election  of  a  Doge  could 
take  place  if  forbidden  by  the  Pope,  and  that,  until  the 
Senate  had  become  obedient  to  the  Papacy,  no  such  elec- 
tion would  be  sanctioned.  But  the  Senate,  having  re- 
ceived a  useful  hint  through  its  own  Ambassador,  was 
quite  equal  to  the  occasion.  It  at  once  declined  to  re- 
ceive this  or  any  dispatch  from  the  Pope,  on  the  plea, 
made  with  exuberant  courtesy,  that,  there  being  no  Doge, 
there  was  no  person  in  Venice  great  enough  to  open  it. 
They  next,  just  as  politely,  declined  to  admit  the  Papal 
Nuncio,  on  the  ground  that,  the  old  Doge  being  dead,  there 
was  no  longer  any  one  worthy  to  receive  him.  Then 
they  proceeded  to  elect  a  new  Doge  who  could  receive 
both  Nuncio  and  message, — a  sturdy  opponent  of  the 
Vatican  pretensions,  Leonardo  Donato. 

The  Senate  now  gave  itself  entirely  to  considering 
ways  and  means  of  warding  off  the  threatened  catastro- 
phe. Its  first  step  was  to  consult  Sarpi.  His  answer  was 
prompt  and  pithy.  He  advised  two  things :  first,  to  pre- 
vent, at  all  hazards,  any  publication  of  the  Papal  bulls 
in  Venice  or  any  obedience  to  them ;  secondly,  to  hold  in 
readiness  for  use  at  any  moment  an  appeal  to  a  future 
Council  of  the  Church. 

Of  these  two  methods,  the  first  would  naturally  seem 
by  far  the  more  difficult.    It  was  not  so  in  reality.    In 


18  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

the  letter  which  Sarpi  presented  to  the  Doge,  he  de- 
voted less  than  four  lines  to  the  first  and  more  than 
fourteen  pages  to  the  second.  As  to  the  first  remedy, 
severe  as  it  was  and  bristling  with  difficulties,  it  was,  as 
he  claimed,  a  simple,  natural,  straightforward  use  of 
police  power.  As  to  the  second,  the  appeal  to  a  future 
Council  was  to  the  Vatican  as  a  red  flag  to  a  bull.  The 
very  use  of  such  an  appeal  was  punished  by  excommuni- 
cation. To  embolden  the  Doge  and  Senate  in  order  that 
they  might  consider  it  as  an  ultimate  possibility,  Sarpi 
was  obliged  to  show  from  the  Scriptures,  the  Fathers, 
the  Councils,  the  early  Popes,  that  the  appeal  to  a  Coun- 
cil was  a  matter  of  right.  With  wonderful  breadth  of 
knowledge  and  clearness  of  statement  he  made  his  points 
and  answered  objections.  To  this  day,  his  letter  re- 
mains a  masterpiece.1 

The  Eepublic  utterly  refused  to  yield;  and  now,  in 
1606,  Pope  Paul  launched  his  excommunication  and  in- 
terdict. In  meeting  them,  the  Senate  took  the  course 
laid  down  by  Sarpi:  the  Papal  Nuncio  was  notified  that 
the  Senate  would  receive  no  paper  from  the  Pope;  all 
ecclesiastics,  from  the  Patriarch  down  to  the  lowest  monk, 
were  forbidden,  under  the  penalties  of  high  treason,  to 
make  public  or  even  to  receive  any  paper  whatever  from 
the  Vatican;  additional  guards  were  placed  at  the  city 
gates,  with  orders  to  search  every  wandering  friar  or 
other  suspicious  person  who  might,  by  any  possibility, 
bring  in  a  forbidden  missive;  a  special  patrol  was  kept, 
night  and  day,  to  prevent  any  posting  of  the  forbidden 
notices  on  walls  or  houses ;  any  person  receiving  or  find- 
ing one  was  to  take  it  immediately  to  the  authorities, 
under  the  severest  penalties,  and  any  person  found  con- 

i  As  to  Sarpi's  advice  to  the  Doge,  the  document  is  given  fully  in  the 
Lettere  di  Sarpi,  Florence,  1863,  vol.  i,  pp.  17  et  seq.;  also  in  Macchi, 
Storia  del  Consiglio  del  Died,  cap.  xxiv,  where  the  bull  of  excommunication 
is  also  given.  Also  Cecchetti:  La  Republica  di  Venezia  e  la  Corte  di 
Roma,  vol.  ii,  pp.  299  et  seq. 


SARPI  19 

cealing  such  documents  was  to  be  punished  by  death.1 
At  first  some  of  the  clergy  were  refractory.  The  head 
of  the  whole  Church  establishment  of  Venice,  the  Patri- 
arch himself,  gave  signs  of  resistance ;  but  the  Senate  at 
once  silenced  him.  Sundry  other  bishops  and  high  ec- 
clesiastics made  a  show  of  opposition;  and  they  were 
placed  in  confinement.  One  of  them  seeming  reluctant 
to  conduct  the  usual  church  service,  the  Senate  sent  an 
executioner  to  erect  a  gibbet  before  his  door.  Another, 
having  asked  that  he  be  allowed  to  await  some  intima- 
tion from  the  Holy  Spirit,  received  answer  that  the  Sen- 
ate had  already  received  directions  from  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  hang  any  person  resisting  their  decree.  The  three 
religious  orders  which  had  showed  most  opposition — 
Jesuits,  Theatins,  and  Capuchins — were  in  a  semi-polite 
manner  virtually  expelled  from  the  Republic.2 

Xot  the  least  curious  among  the  results  of  this  state 
of  things  was  the  war  of  pamphlets.  From  Rome,  Bo- 
logna, and  other  centres  of  thought,  even  from  Paris  and 
Frankfort,  polemic  tractates  rained  upon  the  Republic. 
The  vast  majority  of  their  authors  were  on  the  side  of 
the  Vatican,  and  of  this  majority  the  leaders  were  the 
two  cardinals  so  eminent  in  learning  and  logic,  Bellar- 
mine  and  Baronius;  but,  single-handed,  Sarpi  was,  by 
general  consent,  fully  a  match  for  them.3 

Of  all  the  weapons  then  used  the  most  effective 
throughout  Europe  was  the  solemn  protest  drawn  by 
Sarpi  and  issued  by  the  Doge.  It  was  addressed  nom- 
inally to  the  Venetian  ecclesiastics,  but  really  to  Chris- 
tendom, and  both  as  to  matter  and  manner  it  was  Father 

i  For  a  multitude  of  comical  details  in  this  struggle,  made  all  the  more 
comical  by  Cantu's  devout  and  doleful  recital  of  them,  see  his  Heretiques 
d'ltalie,  vol.  iv,  pp.   124  and  following. 

2  For  interesting  details  regarding  the  departure  of  the  Jesuits,  see 
Cornet,  Paolo  V   e  la  Republica  Veneta,  pp.  277-279. 

3  In  the  library  of  Cornell  University  are  no  less  than  nine  quartos 
filled  with  selected  examples  of  these  polemics  on  both  sides. 


20  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Paul  at  his  best.  It  was  weighty,  lucid,  pungent,  and 
deeply  in  earnest, — in  every  part  asserting  fidelity  to 
the  Church  and  loyalty  to  the  papacy,  but  setting  com- 
pletely at  naught  the  main  claim  of  Pope  Paul :  the  Doge 
solemnly  declaring  himself  "a  prince  who,  in  temporal 
matters,  recognizes  no  superior  save  the  Divine  Maj- 
esty." 

The  victory  of  the  friar  was  soon  recognized  far  and 
near.  Men  began  to  call  him  by  the  name  afterward 
so  generally  given  him, — the  "terribile  frate."  The  Vat- 
ican seemed  paralyzed.  None  of  its  measures  availed, 
and  it  was  hurt,  rather  than  helped,  by  its  efforts  to 
annoy  and  pester  Venice  at  various  capitals.  At  Eome, 
it  burned  Father  Paul's  books  and  declared  him  ex- 
communicated; it  even  sought  to  punish  his  printer  by 
putting  into  the  Index  not  only  all  works  that  he  had 
ever  printed,  but  all  that  he  might  ever  print.  At  Vi- 
enna, the  Papal  Nuncio  thought  to  score  a  point  by  de- 
claring that  he  would  not  attend  a  certain  religious 
function  in  case  the  Venetian  Ambassador  should  ap- 
pear; whereupon  the  Venetian  officially  announced  that 
he  had  taken  physic  and  regretted  that  he  could  not  be 
present, — whereat  all  Europe  laughed. 

Judicious  friends  in  various  European  cabinets  now 
urged  both  parties  to  recede  or  to  compromise.  France 
and  Spain  both  proffered  their  good  offices.  The  offer 
of  France  was  finally  accepted,  and  the  French  Ambas- 
sador was  kept  running  between  the  Ducal  Palace  and 
the  Vatican  until  people  began  laughing  at  him  also. 
The  emissaries  of  His  Holiness  begged  hard  that,  at 
least,  appearances  might  be  saved;  that  the  Republic 
might  undo  some  of  its  measures  before  the  interdict  was 
removed,  or  at  least  might  seem  to  do  so,  and  especially 
that  it  might  withdraw  its  refusals  before  the  Pope 
withdrew  his  penalties.  All  in  vain.  The  Venetians  in- 
sisted that  they  had  committed  no  crime  and  had  nothing 


SARPI  21 

to  retract.  The  Vatican  then  urged  that  the  Senate 
consent  to  receive  absolution  for  its  resistance  to  the 
Pope's  authority.  This  the  Senate  steadily  refused. 
It  insisted:  "Let  His  Holiness  put  things  as  before, 
and  we  will  put  things  as  before;  as  to  his  abso- 
lution, we  do  not  need  it  or  want  it;  to  receive  it  would 
be  to  acknowledge  that  we  have  been  in  the  wrong." 
Even  the  last  poor  sop  of  all  was  refused:  the 
Senate  would  have  no  great  "function"  to  celebrate 
the  termination  of  the  interdict ;  they  would  not  even  go 
to  the  mass  which  Cardinal  Joyeuse  celebrated  on  that 
occasion.  The  only  appearance  of  concession  which  the 
Eepublic  made  was  to  give  up  the  two  ecclesiastics  to 
the  French  Ambassador  as  a  matter  of  courtesy  to  the 
French  king;  and,  when  this  was  done,  the  Ambassador 
delivered  them  to  the  Pope;  but  Venice  especially  re- 
served all  the  rights  she  had  exercised.  All  the  essential 
demands  of  the  Papacy  were  refused,  and  thus  was  for- 
ever ended  the  Papal  power  of  laying  an  interdict  upon 
a  city  or  a  people.  From  that  incubus,  Christendom, 
thanks  to  Father  Paul  and  to  Venice,  was  at  last  and 
forever  free.1 

The  Vatican  did,  indeed,  try  hard  to  keep  its  old  claim 
in  being.  A  few  years  after  its  defeat  by  Fra  Paolo,  it 
endeavored  to  reassert  in  Spain  the  same  authority  which 
had  been  so  humbly  acknowledged  there  a  few  years  be- 
fore. It  was  doubtless  felt  that  this  most  pious  of  all 
countries,  which  had  previously  been  so  docile,  and  had 
stood  steadily  by  the  Vatican  against  Venice  in  the  recent 
struggle,  would  again  set  an  example  of  submission. 
Never  was  there  a  greater  mistake :  the  Vatican  received 
from  Spanish  piety  a  humiliating  refusal. 

i  For  an  acknowledgment  of  the  fact  that  interdicts  have  been  per- 
manently given  up  by  the  Church — with  a  solemnly  humorous  reason  for  it 
— making  a  virtue  of  necessity,  see  Addis  and  Arnold,  Catholic  Dictionary, 
Art.  "Interdict." 


22  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Next  it  tried  the  old  weapons  against  the  little  gov- 
ernment at  Turin.  For  many  generations  the  House  of 
Savoy  had  been  dutifully  submissive  to  religious  con- 
trol ;  nowhere  out  of  Spain  had  heresy  been  treated  more 
cruelly;  yet  here,  too,  the  Vatican  claim  was  spurned. 
But  the  final  humiliation  took  place  some  years  later 
under  Urban  VIII, — the  same  pontiff  who  wrecked  Papal 
infallibility  on  Galileo's  telescope.  He  tried  to  enforce 
his  will  on  the  state  of  Lucca,  which,  in  the  days  of  Pope 
Paul,  had  submitted  to  the  Vatican  decrees  abjectly;  but 
that  little  republic  now  seized  the  weapons  which  Sarpi 
had  devised,  and  drove  the  Papal  forces  out  of  the  field  : 
the  Papal  ban  was,  even  by  this  petty  government,  an- 
nulled in  Venetian  fashion  and  even  less  respectfully.1 

Thus  the  world  learned  how  weak  the  Vatican  had 
become  as  a  political  power.  Even  Pope  Paul  learned  it, 
and,  from  being  the  most  strenuous  of  modern  pontiffs, 
he  became  one  of  the  most  moderate  in  everything  save 
in  the  enrichment  of  his  family.  Thus  ended  the  last 
serious  effort  to  coerce  a  people  by  an  interdict,  and  so, 
one  might  suppose,  would  end  the  work  of  Father  Paul. 
Not  so.  There  was  to  come  a  second  chapter  in  his 
history,  more  instructive,  perhaps,  than  the  first, — a 
chapter  which  has  lasted  until  our  own  day.2 

i  The  proofs — and  from  Catholic  sources — that  it  was  the  Pope,  not 
merely  the  Congregation  of  the  Index,  who  condemned  Galileo's  doctrine 
of  the  earth's  movement  about  the  sun,  the  present  writer  has  given 
in  his  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology,  vol.  i,  chap.  iii. 

2  Since  this  chapter  was  penned,  there  come  tidings  which  seem  to 
show  the  Interdict  less  a  thing  of  the  distant  past  than  the  world  had 
supposed.  In  October,  1009,  the  present  Pope  laid  on  the  little  town  of 
Adria,  in  Italy,  an  interdict  of  a  fortnight,  for  the  wounding  of  its 
Bishop  by  a  street  mob  excited  by  the  transfer  of  his  residence  to  a 
neighboring  city.  It  is  very  mild,  far  less  harsh  and  high-handed  than 
thoge  of  former  days,  and  seems  but  the  last  feeble  muttering  of  the 
thunder  which  rolled  through  the  earth  in  the  days  of  the  Leos  and  In- 
nocents and  Pauls.  (See  the  London  Times  for  Oct.  8,  1009,  and  the 
official  Acta  Apostolica?  Scdis  for  Oct.  15,  1909,  which  gives  in  full  tho 
provisions  of  the  interdict.) 


II 

THE  Venetian  Republic  showed  itself  duly  grateful  to 
Sarpi.  The  Senate  offered  him  splendid  gifts  and 
entitled  him  " Theologian  of  Venice."  The  gifts  he  re- 
fused, but  the  title,  with  its  duty,  which  was  mainly  to 
guard  the  Republic  against  the  encroachments  of  the 
Vatican,  he  accepted,  and  his  life  in  the  monastery  of 
Santa  Fosca  went  on  quietly,  simply,  laboriously,  as  be- 
fore. The  hatred  now  felt  for  him  at  Rome  was  un- 
bounded: it  corresponded  to  the  gratitude  at  Venice. 
Every  one  saw  his  danger,  and  he  well  knew  it.  Poten- 
tates were  then  wont  to  send  assassins  on  long  errands, 
and  the  arm  of  the  Vatican  was  especially  far-reaching 
and  merciless.  It  was  the  period  when  Philip  the  Sec- 
ond from  his  lair  in  Spain  murdered  William  of  Orange 
in  the  Netherlands,  and  when  Pius  V,  a  Pope  whom  the 
Church  afterwards  proclaimed  a  saint,  commissioned  an 
assassin  to  murder  Queen  Elizabeth.1 

But  there  was  in  Father  Paul  a  trust  in  Providence 
akin  to  fatalism.  Again  and  again  he  was  warned,  and 
among  those  who  are  said  to  have  advised  him  to  be 
on  his  guard  against  assassins  was  no  less  a  personage 

1  This  statement  formerly  led  to  violent  denials  by  Ultramontane  cham- 
pions; but  in  1870  it  was  made  by  Lord  Acton,  a  Roman  Catholic,  one 
of  the  most  learned  of  modern  historians,  and,  when  it  was  angrily  denied, 
he  quietly  cited  the  official  life  of  Pope  Pius  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum? 
published  under  the  highest  Church  authority.  This  was  final;  denial 
ceased,  and  the  statement  is  no  longer  questioned.  For  other  proofs  in 
the  line  of  Lord  Acton's  citation,  see  Bellarmine's  Selbstbiographie,  ed.  by 
Dollinger,  Bonn,  1887,  pp.  306  et  seq.  Unable  longer  to  controvert  Lord 
Acton's  statement,  the  Jesuit  Father  Campbell  asserts  that  he  was  not 
a  Roman  Catholic,  but  an  Old  Catholic.  The  statement  is  refuted  by  a 
far  more  eminent  authority,  the  Abbot  Gasquet,  of  the  Order  of  St.  Bene- 
dict.    See  Gasquet:     Lord  Acton  and  His  Circle,  p.  371  and  elsewhere. 

23 


24  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

tlian  his  greatest  controversial  enemy — Cardinal  Bel- 
larmine.  It  was  believed  by  Sarpi's  friends  that  Bellar- 
mine  's  humanity  prevailed  over  his  fealty  to  the  Vatican, 
and  we  may  rejoice  in  the  hope  that  his  nobler  qualities 
did  really  assert  themselves  against  the  casuistry  which 
sanctioned  assassination. 

These  warnings  were  but  too  well  founded.  On  a 
pleasant  evening  in  October,  1607,  a  carefully  laid  trap 
was  sprung.  Eeturning  from  his  day's  work  at  the 
Ducal  Palace,  Father  Paul,  just  as  he  had  crossed  the 
little  bridge  of  Santa  Fosca  before  reaching  his  convent, 
was  met  by  five  assassins.  Two  of  his  usual  attendants 
had  been  drawn  off  by  the  outburst  of  a  fire  in  the 
neighborhood;  the  other  two  were  old  men  who  proved 
useless.  The  place  was  well  chosen.  The  descent  from 
the  bridge  was  so  narrow  that  all  three  were  obliged  to 
march  in  single  file,  and  just  at  this  point  these  ruffians 
sprang  upon  him  in  the  dusk,  separated  him  from  his 
companions,  gave  him  fifteen  dagger  thrusts,  two  in  his 
throat,  and  one — a  fearful  gash — on  the  side  of  his  head, 
and  then,  convinced  that  they  had  killed  him,  fled  to  their 
boats,  only  a  few  paces  distant. 

The  victim  lingered  long  in  the  hospital,  but  his  sound 
constitution  and  abstemious  habits  stood  him  in  good 
stead.  Very  important  among  the  qualities  which  re- 
stored him  to  health  were  his  optimism  and  his  cheerful- 
ness. An  early  manifestation  of  the  first  of  these  was 
seen  when,  on  regaining  consciousness,  he  called  for  the 
stiletto  which  had  been  drawn  from  the  main  wound  and, 
running  his  fingers  along  the  blade,  said  cheerily  to  his 
friends,  "It  is  not  filed."  What  this  meant,  any  one 
knows  who  has  seen  in  various  European  collections  the 
daggers  dating  from  the  "ages  of  faith"  cunningly  filed 
or  grooved  to  hold  poison.1 

i  There  is  a  remarkable  example  of  a  beautiful  dagger,  grooved  to  con- 
tain poison,  displayed  in  the  imperial  collection  of  arms  at  Vienna. 


SARPI  25 

As  an  example  of  the  second  of  these  qualities,  we 
may  take  his  well-known  reply  when,  to  the  surgeon,  who 
in  dressing  the  wound  made  by  the  "style,"  or  stiletto, 
spoke  of  its  "extravagance,"  rudeness,  and  yet  ineffect- 
iveness, Fra  Paolo  quietly  answered  that  in  these  charac- 
teristics he  recognized  "the  style  of  the  Roman  Curia." 

Meantime  the  assassins  had  found  their  way  back  to 
Rome;  but  it  is  some  comfort  to  know  that  later,  when 
such  conscience  as  there  was  throughout  Italy  and  Eu- 
rope showed  intense  disgust  at  the  whole  proceeding,  the 
Roman  Court  treated  them  coldly  and  even  harshly. 

The  Republic  continued  in  every  way  to  show  Sarpi  its 
sympathy  and  gratitude.  It  made  him  splendid  offers, 
which  he  refused;  but  two  gifts  he  accepted.  One  was 
full  permission  to  explore  the  Venetian  archives,  and 
the  other  was  a  little  doorway,  cut  through  the  garden 
wall  of  his  monastery,  enabling  him  to  reach  his  gondola 
without  going  through  the  narrow  and  tortuous  path  he 
had  formerly  taken  on  his  daily  journey  to  the  public  of- 
fices. This  humble  portal  still  remains:  beneath  few 
triumphal  arches  has  there  ever  passed  a  greater  con- 
queror.1 

Efforts  were  also  made  to  cajole  him, — to  induce  him 
to  visit  Rome,  with  fine  promises  of  recognition  and 
honor,  and  with  solemn  assurances  that  no  harm  should 
come  to  him ;  but  he  was  too  wise  to  yield.  Only  a  short 
time  previously  he  had  seen  Giordano  Bruno,  after  seven 
years  spent  in  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition  at  Venice 
and  Rome,  burned  alive  on  the  Campo  dei  Fiori.  He  had 
seen  his  friend  and  correspondent,  Fra  Fulgenzio  Man- 
fredi,  yield  to  similar  allurements  and  accept  a  safe 
conduct  to  Rome,  which,  though  it  solemnly  guaranteed 

i  The  present  writer  has  examined  with  care  the  spot  where  the  attack 
was  made,  and  found  that  the  plot  was  as  cunningly  conceived  as  it 
was  fiendishly  executed.  He  also  visited  what  was  remaining  of  the  con- 
vent in  April,  1902,  and  found  the  little  door  as  serviceable  as  when  it 
was  made. 


26  SEVEN  GKEAT  STATESMEN 

Mm  against  harm,  proved  as  worthless  as  that  of  John 
Huss  at  the  Council  of  Constance ;  the  Inquisition  tortur- 
ing him  to  death  on  the  spot  where,  nine  years  earlier,  it 
had  burned  Bruno.  He  had  seen  his  friend,  the  Arch- 
deacon Ribetti,  drawn  within  the  clutch  of  the  Vatican, 
only  to  die  of  "a  most  painful  colic"  immediately  after 
dining  with  a  confidential  chamberlain  of  the  Pope,  and, 
had  he  lived  a  few  months  longer,  he  would  have  seen 
his  friend  and  confidant,  Antonio  de  Dominis,  Arch- 
bishop of  Spalato,  to  whom  he  had  entrusted  a  copy  of 
his  most  important  work,  enticed  to  Rome  and  put  to 
death  by  the  Inquisition.  Though  the  Vatican  exercised 
a  strong  fascination  over  its  enemies,  against  Father 
Paul  it  was  powerless;  he  never  yielded  to  it,  but  kept 
the  even  tenor  of  his  way.1 

In  the  dispatches  which  now  passed,  comedy  was  min- 
gled with  tragedy.  Very  unctuous  was  the  expression 
by  His  Holiness  of  his  apprehensions  regarding  "dan- 
gers to  the  salvation"  and  of  his  "fears  for  the  souls" 
of  the  Venetian  Senators,  if  they  persisted  in  asserting 
their  own  control  of  their  own  state.  Hardly  less  touch- 
ing were  the  fears  expressed  by  the  good  Oratorian,  Car- 
dinal Baronius,  that  "a  judgment  might  be  brought  upon 
the  Republic"  if  it  declined  to  let  the  Vatican  have  its 
way.  But  these  expressions  were  not  likely  to  prevail 
with  men  who  had  studied  Machiavelli. 

Uncompromising  as  ever,  Father  Paul  continued  to 
write  letters  and  publish  treatises  which  clenched  more 
and  more  firmly  into  the  mind  of  Venice  and  of  Europe 
the  political  doctrine  of  which  he  was  the  apostle, — the 
doctrine  that  the  State  is  rightfully  independent  of  the 
Church, — and  throughout  the  Christian  world  he  was  rec- 
ognized as  victor. 

iA  copy  of  Manfredi's  "safe  conduct"  is  given  by  Castellani,  Lettere 
Inedite  di  Fra  Paolo  Sarpi,  p.  12,  note.  No  guarantee  could  be  more 
explicit. 


SARPI  27 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  bitterness  of  the  attacks  upon 
him,  though  some  of  them,  at  this  day,  provoke  a  smile. 
While  efforts  were  made  to  discredit  him  among  scholars 
by  spurious  writings  or  by  interpolations  in  genuine 
writings,  efforts  equally  ingenious  were  made  to  arouse 
popular  hostility.  One  of  these  was  a  painting  which 
represented  him  writhing  amid  the  flames  of  hell,  with 
a  legend  stating,  as  a  reason  for  his  punishment,  that 
he  had  opposed  the  Holy  Father. 

Now  it  was  indeed,  in  the  midst  of  ferocious  attacks 
upon  his  reputation  and  cunning  attempts  upon  his  life, 
that  he  entered  a  new  and  most  effective  period  of  ac- 
tivity. For  years,  as  the  adviser  of  Venice,  he  had 
studied,  both  as  a  historian  and  as  a  statesman,  the  great- 
est questions  which  concerned  his  country,  and  especially 
those  which  related  to  the  persistent  efforts  of  the  Vati- 
can to  encroach  upon  Venetian  self-government.  The 
results  of  these  studies  he  had  embodied  in  reports  which 
had  shaped  the  course  of  the  Republic;  and  now,  his 
learning  and  powers  of  thought  being  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  policy  of  Europe  in  general,  as  affected  by 
similar  Papal  encroachments,  he  began  publishing  a 
series  of  treatises,  which  at  once  attracted  general  atten- 
tion. 

As  early  as  1608  he  was  at  work  on  his  "  History  of  the 
Controversy  between  Pope  Paul  V  and  Venice,"  which 
was  well  known  in  manuscript  long  before  it  found  a 
printer  in  1624.  With  relentless  pungency  it  laid  bare 
the  whole  tissue  of  papal  and  Jesuit  intrigue.  In  this 
work,  as  a  historian,  he  clenched  his  effort  as  a  statesman ; 
from  that  day  forward  no  nation  has  even  been  seriously 
threatened  with  an  interdict.1 

Subsidiary    books    followed    rapidly    from    his    pen, 

i  There  is  a  quaint  old  English  translation  of  this  book.  It  is  entitled 
a  History  of  the  Quarrels  of  Pope  Paul  V  with  the  State  of  Venice,  and 
was  printed  in  1626. 


2S  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

strengthening  the  civil  power  against  the  clerical ;  but  in 
1610  came  a  treatise  which  marked  an  epoch, — his  His- 
tory of  Ecclesiastical  Benefices.1  In  this  he  dealt  with  a 
problem  which  had  become  very  serious,  not  only  in  Ven- 
ice, but  in  every  European  state,  showed  the  process  by 
which  vast  treasures  had  been  taken  from  the  control  of 
the  civil  power  and  heaped  up  for  ecclesiastical  pomp 
and  intrigue,  pointed  out  special  wrongs  done  by  the 
system  to  the  Church  as  well  as  the  State,  and  advocated 
a  reform  which  should  restore  this  wealth  to  better  uses. 
His  arguments  spread  widely  and  sank  deep,  not  only  in 
Italy,  but  throughout  Europe,  and  the  nineteenth  century 
has  seen  them  applied  effectively  in  every  European 
country  within  the  Roman  obedience. 

In  1611  he  published  his  treatise  on  the  Inquisition  at 
Venice,  presenting  historical  arguments  against  the  uses 
which  ecclesiasticism  had  made  of  that  tribunal.  These 
arguments  spread  far,  and  developed  throughout  Eu- 
rope that  opposition  to  the  Inquisition  which  finally  led 
to  its  destruction.  Minor  works  followed,  dealing  with 
state  questions  arising  between  the  Vatican  and  Venice, 
each  treatise — thoroughly  well  reasoned  and  convincing 
— having  a  strong  effect  on  the  discussion  of  similar  pub- 
lic questions  in  every  other  European  nation. 

In  1613  came  two  books  of  a  high  order,  each  marking 
an  epoch.  The  first  of  these  was  upon  the  Right  of 
Sanctuary,  and  in  it  Sarpi  led  the  way,  which  all  modern 
states  have  followed,  out  of  the  old,  vicious  system  of 
sanctioning  crime  by  sheltering  criminals.  The  cogency 
of  his  argument  and  the  value  of  its  application  gained 
for  him  an  especial  tribute  by  the  best  authority  on  such 
questions  whom  Europe  had  seen — Hugo  Grotius. 

i  The  old  English  translation  of  this  book,  published  in  1736  at  West- 
minster, is  by  no  means  a  rare  book,  and  it  affords  the  general  reader 
perhaps  the  most  accessible  means  of  understanding  Fra  Paolo's  simplicity, 
thoroughness,  and  vigor. 


SARPI  29 

The  second  of  these  books  dealt  with  the  Immunity  of 
the  Clergy.  This  work  belonged  to  the  same  order  of 
ideas  as  the  earlier,  and  the  second  fastened  into  the 
European  mind  the  reasons  why  no  state  can  depend  upon 
the  Church  for  the  punishment  of  clerical  criminals. 
His  argument  was  a  triumphant  vindication  of  Venice 
in  her  struggle  with  Paul  V  on  this  point;  but  it  was 
more  than  that.  It  became  the  practical  guide  of  all 
modern  states.  Its  reasoning  aided  powerfully  in  over- 
throwing throughout  Europe  the  legal  distinction,  in 
criminal  matters,  between  the  priestly  caste  and  the 
world  in  general:  that  "benefit  of  clergy "  which  had  for 
centuries  been  so  subversive  of  justice. 

Among  lesser  treatises  which  followed  is  one  which  has 
done  much  to  shape  modern  policy  regarding  public  in- 
struction. This  was  his  book  upon  the  Education  given 
by  the  Jesuits.  One  idea  which  it  enforced  sped  far, — 
his  statement  that  Jesuit  maxims  develop  "sons  disobe- 
dient to  their  parents,  citizens  unfaithful  to  their  coun- 
try, and  subjects  undutiful  to  their  sovereign."  Jesuit 
education  has  indeed  been  maintained,  and  evidences  of  it 
may  be  seen  in  various  European  countries.  The  trav- 
eler in  Italy  constantly  sees  in  the  larger  Italian  towns 
long  lines  of  young  men  and  boys,  sallow,  thin,  and  list- 
less, walking  two  and  two,  with  priests  at  each  end  of 
the  coffle.  These  are  students  taking  their  exercise,  and 
an  American  or  Englishman  marvels  as  he  remembers  the 
playing  fields  of  his  own  country.  Youth  are  thus 
brought  up  as  milksops,  to  be  graduated  as  scapegraces. 
The  strong  men  who  control  public  affairs,  who  lead  men 
and  originate  measures  in  the  open,  are  not  bred  in  Jes- 
uit forcing-houses.  Even  the  Jesuits  themselves  have 
acknowledged  this,  and  perhaps  the  strongest  of  all  argu- 
ments supplementary  to  those  given  by  Father  Paul  were 
uttered  by  Padre  Curci,  eminent  in  his  day  as  a  Jesuit 
gladiator,  but  who  at  last  realized  the  impossibility  of  ac- 


30  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

cornplishing  great  tilings  with  men  moulded  by  Jesuit 
methods. 

All  these  works  took  strong  hold  upon  European 
thought.  Thoughtful  men  in  all  parts  of  Europe  rec- 
ognized Sarpi  as  both  a  statesman  and  a  historian. 
Among  his  English  friends  were  such  as  Lord  Bacon  and 
Sir  Henry  "VVotton;  and  his  praises  have  been  sounded 
by  Grotius,  by  Gibbon,  by  Hallam,  by  Ranke,  and  by  Ma- 
caulay.  Strong,  lucid,  these  works  of  Father  Paul  have 
always  been  especially  attractive  to  those  who  rejoice  in 
the  leadership  of  a  master  mind. 

But  in  1619  came  the  most  important  of  all, — a  serv- 
ice to  humanity  hardly  less  striking  than  that  which  he 
had  rendered  in  his  battle  against  the  Interdict, — his 
History  of  the  Council  of  Trent. 

His  close  relations  to  so  many  men  of  mark  who  sat 
in  that  Council  and  his  long  study  in  public  archives  and 
private  libraries  bore  fruit  in  this  work,  which  takes 
rank  among  the  few  enduring  historical  treatises  of  the 
world.  Throughout,  it  is  vigorous  and  witty,  but  at  the 
same  time  profound;  everywhere  it  is  pervaded  by  so- 
briety of  judgment.  Its  portraits  of  leading  men;  its 
revelation  of  the  efforts  or  threats  by  representatives  of 
various  great  powers  to  break  away  from  the  Papacy 
and  establish  national  churches;  its  presentation  of  the 
arguments  of  anti-papal  orators  on  one  side  and  of  Lay- 
nez  and  his  associates  on  the  other;  its  coupling  of  acts 
with  pretexts ;  its  penetration  into  the  whole  network  of 
intrigue,  and  its  thorough  discussion  of  underlying  prin- 
ciples,— all  are  masterly. 

Though  the  name  of  the  author  was  concealed  in  an 
anagram  ("Pietro  Soave  Polano'  " — i.  e.  Paolo  Sarpi 
Veneto),  the  book  was  felt,  by  the  Vatican  party,  to  be 
a  blow  which  only  one  man  could  have  dealt,  and  the 
worst  blow  which  the  party  had  received  since  its  author 
had  defeated  the  Interdict  at  Venice.     Efforts  were  made, 


SARPI  31 

by  outcries  and  calumnies,  to  discredit  the  work,  and  they 
have  been  continued  from  that  day  to  this,  but  in  vain. 
That  there  must  be  some  gaps  and  many  imperfections 
in  it  is  certain;  but  its  general  character  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  ultramontane  weapons.  The  blow  was  felt  to 
be  so  heavy  that  the  Jesuit  Pallavicini  was  empowered 
to  write  a  history  of  the  Council  to  counterbalance  it,  and 
his  work  was  well  done;  but  Eanke,  the  most  unpreju- 
diced of  judges,  comparing  the  two,  assigns  the  palm  to 
Father  Paul. 

For  his  was  the  work  not  merely  of  a  minute  scholar 
but  of  a  broad-minded  statesman, — of  a  man  who  had 
known  intimately  and  conversed  freely  with  many  of 
those  who  knew  the  Council  best, — a  man  who  had 
studied  the  reports  of  the  quick-witted  Venetian  ambas- 
sadors and  who  had  gathered  from  the  most  dissimilar 
sources  masses  of  information  at  first  hand. 

Dry  and  crisp  as  is  its  style,  it  is  lighted  up  here  and 
there  by  humor :  noteworthy  examples  are  his  accounts 
of  the  discussions  in  the  Council  on  "Limbo,"  the  place 
assigned  to  the  departed  spirits  of  unbaptized  infants — 
the  Dominicans  holding  it  to  be  a  dark  place  under  the 
earth,  and  the  Franciscans,  more  kindly,  declaring  it  to 
be  a  well-lighted  place  above  the  earth.  It  is  a  comfort 
to  acknowledge  that  in  this  Catholic  Council  of  the  six- 
teenth century  no  one  was  found  so  inhumane  as  to  as- 
sign to  unapproved  infants  a  place  as  evil  as  that  to 
which  sundry  Protestant  divines  predestined  them  in  the 
early  days  of  the  nineteenth. 

A  subtle  humor  pervades  Sarpi's  story — as  in  his  ac- 
count of  the  quarrels  for  precedence  between  the  Spanish 
and  French  ambassadors  and  his  quotation  from  a  French 
ambassador  that  a  proposed  reform  was  "not  a  plaster 
of  Isaiah  to  heal  the  wound,  but  of  Ezekiel  to  make  it 
raw. ' ' 1 

1  For  examples  of  style  and  treatment  above  given,  see  History  of  the 


32  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Of  all  modern  historians  he  possesses  in  largest  meas- 
ure those  qualities  which  have  given  immortality  to  Taci- 
tus. Not  at  all  seeking  popularity,  his  power  is  seen  by 
the  simple  fact  that  this  work  of  his  has  elicited  the 
praises  of  historians  so  different  as  Gibbon  and  Ranke. 

The  book  was  immediately  spread  throughout  Europe ; 
but,  of  all  the  translations,  the  most  noteworthy  was  the 
English.  Sarpi  had  entrusted  a  copy  of  the  original  to 
his  friend,  Antonio  de  Dominis,  Archbishop  of  Spalato, 
and  he,  having  taken  refuge  in  England,  had  it  trans- 
lated there,  the  authorship  being  ascribed,  as  in  the 
original,  to  "Pietro  Soave  Polano."  This  English 
translation  was,  in  vigor  and  pith,  worthy  of  the  original. 
In  it  can  be  discerned,  as  clearly  as  in  the  original,  that 
atmosphere  of  intrigue  and  brutal  assertion  of  power  by 
which  the  Roman  Curia,  after  packing  the  Council  with 
petty  Italian  bishops,  bade  defiance  to  the  Catholic  world. 
This  translation,  more  than  all  else,  has  enabled  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples  to  understand  what  was  meant  by 
the  Italian  historian  when  he  said  that  Father  Paul 
' '  taught  the  world  how  the  Holy  Spirit  guides  the  Coun- 
cils of  the  Church."  It  remains  cogent  down  to  this 
day ;  after  reading  it  one  feels  that  such  guidance  might 
equally  be  claimed  for  Tammany  Hall.  The  claim  that 
the  Council  represented  the  Universal  Church  is  perhaps 
best  answered  by  a  simple  presentation  of  figures.  The 
number  of  Italian  bishops  in  attendance  during  the  cul- 
minating sessions  was  187.  The  number  of  bishops  from 
all  the  world  beside  was  81.  Of  these,  Ireland  sent  but 
three,  Germany  but  two,  and  England  but  one.1 

Council  of  Trent,  aB  above,  Brent's  translation,  1620,  lib.  ii,  p.   178,  and 
lib.  viii,  pp.  727,  728. 

i  For  the  numbers  of  the  bishops  at  the  Council  of  Trent,  as  given  by 
the  best  Catholic  authorities,  see  the  Acta  Conciliorum,  edit,  by  Ilardouin, 
vol.  x,  pp.  418-438,  Paris,  1714.  Also,  the  Concilium  Trident  in  urn,  edit, 
by  the  Gorres  Soc,  vol.  iv,  pp.  529-532.     As  to  Germany,  it  is  true  that 


SARPI  33 

Although  Father  Paul  never  acknowledged  the  author- 
ship of  the  History  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  although 
the  original  copy,  prepared  for  the  press,  with  his  final 
corrections,  still  remains  buried  in  the  archives  at  Venice, 
the  whole  world  knew  that  he  alone  could  have  written  it. 

But  during  all  these  years,  while  elaborating  opinions 
on  the  weightiest  matters  of  state  for  the  Venetian  Sen- 
ate, and  sending  out  this  series  of  books  which  so  power- 
fully influenced  the  attitude  of  his  own  and  after  genera- 
tions toward  the  Vatican,  he  was  working  with  great 
effect  in  yet  another  field.  With  the  possible  exception 
of  Voltaire,  he  was  the  most  vigorous  and  influential 
letter-writer  during  the  three  hundred  years  which  sepa- 
rated Erasmus  from  Thomas  Jefferson.  Voltaire  cer- 
tainly spread  his  work  over  a  larger  field,  lighted  it  with 
more  wit,  and  gained  more  brilliant  victories  by  it;  but 
as  regards  accurate  historical  knowledge,  close  acquaint- 
ance with  statesmen,  familiarity  with  the  best  and  worst 
which  statesmen  could  do,  sober  judgment  and  cogent 
argument,  the  great  Venetian  was  his  superior.  Curi- 
ously enough,  Sarpi  resembles  the  American  statesman 
more  closely  than  either  of  the  Europeans.  Both  he  and 
Jefferson  had  the  intense  practical  interest  of  statesmen, 
not  only  in  the  welfare  of  their  own  countries,  but  in 
all  the  political  and  religious  problems  of  their  times. 
Both  were  keenly  alive  to  progress  in  the  physical  sci- 
ences, wherever  made.  Both  were  wont  to  throw  a  light 
veil  of  humor  over  very  serious  discussions.  Both  could 
use,  with  great  effect,  curt,  caustic  description:  Jeffer- 
son's letter  to  Governor  Langdon  satirizing  the  crowned 
heads  of  Europe,  as  he  had  seen  them,  has  a  worthy  pen- 
dant in  Fra  Paolo's  pictures  of  sundry  representatives  of 
the  Vatican.    In  both  these  writers  was  a  deep  earnest- 

the  Emperor  was  also  represented  by  an  embassy,  but  it  will  bardly  be 
claimed  that  this  was  inspired  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
3 


34  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ness,  which,  at  times,  showed  itself  in  prophetic  utter- 
ances. The  amazing  prophecy  of  Jefferson  against 
American  slavery,  beginning  with  the  words,  "I  tremble 
when  I  remember  that  God  is  just,"  which,  in  the  light 
of  our  civil  war,  seems  divinely  inspired,  is  paralleled 
by  some  of  Sarpi's  utterances  against  the  unmoral  tend- 
encies of  Jesuitism  and  Ultramontanism ;  and  these,  too, 
seem  divinely  inspired  as  one  reads  them  in  the  light  of 
what  has  happened  since  in  Spain,  in  Sicily,  in  Naples,  in 
Poland,  and  in  sundry  South  American  republics. 

The  range  of  Sarpi's  friendly  relations  was  amazing. 
They  embraced  statesmen,  churchmen,  scholars,  scientific 
investigators,  diplomatists  in  every  part  of  Europe,  and, 
among  these,  Galileo  and  Lord  Bacon,  Grotius  and  Mor- 
nay,  Salmasius  and  Casaubon,  De  Thou  and  Sir  Henry 
Wotton,  Bishop  Bedell  and  Vossius,  with  a  great  number 
of  others  of  nearly  equal  rank.  King  James  I  showed 
an  especial  interest  in  him,  and  wrote  to  obtain  his  por- 
trait. Unfortunately  the  greater  part  of  his  correspond- 
ence has  perished.  In  the  two  small  volumes  collected 
by  Polidori,  and  in  the  small  additional  volume  of  letters 
to  Simon  Contarini,  Venetian  Ambassador  at  Eome,  un- 
earthed a  few  years  since  in  the  Venetian  archives  by 
Castellani,  we  have  all  that  is  known.  It  is  but  a  small 
fraction  of  his  epistolary  work,  but  it  enables  us  to  form 
a  clear  opinion.  The  letters  are  well  worthy  of  the  man 
who  wrote  the  History  of  the  Council  of  Trent  and  the 
protest  of  Venice  against  the  Interdict. 

It  is  true  that  there  has  been  derived  from  these  let- 
ters, by  his  open  enemies  on  one  side  and  his  defenders 
of  a  rather  sickly  conscientious  sort  on  the  other,  one 
charge  against  him:  this  is  based  on  his  famous 
declaration,  "I  utter  falsehood  never,  but  the  truth 
not  to  every  one."  ("La  falsita  non  dico  mai  mai, 
ma    la    verita    non    a    ogniuno. ")  1     Considering    his 

1  For  this  famous  utterance,  see  notes  of  conversations  given  by  Christoph, 


SARPI  35 

vast  responsibilities  as  a  statesman  and  the  terrible 
dangers  which  beset  him  as  a  theologian; — that  in  the 
first  of  these  capacities  the  least  misstep  might,  wreck  the 
great  cause  which  he  supported,  and  that  in  the  second 
such  a  misstep  might  easily  bring  him  to  the  torture 
chamber  and  the  stake,  normally  healthful  minds  will 
doubtless  agree  that  the  criticism  upon  these  words  is 
more  Pharisaic  than  cogent. 

Sarpi  was  now  spoken  of,  more  than  ever,  both  among 
friends  and  foes,  as  the  "terrible  frate."  Terrible  to  the 
main  enemies  of  Venice  he  indeed  was,  and  the  machina- 
tions of  his  opponents  grew  more  and  more  serious. 
Efforts  to  capture  him,  to  assassinate  him,  to  poison 
him,  to  discredit  him,  to  lure  him  to  Rome,  or  at  least 
within  reach  of  the  Inquisition,  became  almost  frantic; 
but  all  in  vain. 

One  precaution  of  his  during  this  period  throws  a  vivid 
light  upon  his  character  and  his  time.  His  main  fear 
was  that  if  kidnapped  by  the  Inquisitors  he  might,  under 
unbearable  torture,  reveal  important  secrets  of  State; 
he  therefore  always  carried  the  means  of  ending  his 
own  life. 

He  still  continued  his  work  at  the  monastery  of  Santa 
Fosca,  publishing  from  time  to  time  discussions  of  ques- 
tions important  for  Venice  and  for  Europe,  working 
steadily  in  the  public  service  until  his  last  hours.  None 
of  the  attacks  by  his  enemies  embittered  him.  He  re- 
mained gentle  and  kindly  to  the  last.  Sir  Henry  Wotton, 
English  Ambassador  at  Venice,  writing  to  the  Earl  of 
Salisbury,  says  of  Sarpi:  "He  seemeth  in  countenance, 
as  in  spirit,  liker  to  Philip  Melanchthon  than  to  Luther. ' ' x 

Burggraf  von  Dohna,  in  July,  1608,  in  Briefe  und  Aden  zur  Geschichte 
des  Dreissigjahrigen  Krieges,  ii,  Miinchen,  1874,  p.  79. 

1  For  the  correspondence  between  Wotton  and  King  James,  regarding 
Sarpi's  portrait,  and  for  Wotton's  comparison  between  the  great  Venetian 
and    Melanchthon,    see    the    very    interesting    original    letters    found    at 


36  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

In  spite  of  his  excommunication  and  of  his  friendships 
with  many  of  the  most  earnest  Protestants  of  Europe,  he 
remained  a  son  of  the  church  in  which  he  was  born. 
His  life  was  shaped  in  accordance  with  its  general  pre- 
cepts, and  every  day  he  heard  mass.  So  his  career 
quietly  ran  on  until,  in  1623,  he  met  death  calmly,  with- 
out fear,  in  full  reliance  upon  the  divine  justice  and 
mercy.  His  last  words  were  a  prayer  for  Venice — "Esto 
perpetual' 

Venice,  a  few  years  since,  and  published  in  the  London  Athenaeum,  Sept. 
2,  1905. 

To  any  who  may  have  been  interested  by  the  foregoing  essay  and  desirous 
of  a  more  minute  and  detailed  account  of  Sarpi's  life,  excellently  given  and 
indeed  the  best  of  accessible  sources  known  to  me  in  English,  see  the  Rev- 
erend Alexander  Robertson,  D.D.,  Fra  Paolo  Sarpi,  —  T1w  Greatest  of  the  Ven- 
etians, London,  Sampson,  Low,  Marston  $•  Co.,  1893.  I  desire  to  express  here 
my  indebtedness  to  Dr.  Robertson  for  especial  aid  during  my  last  two  visits 
in  Venice  in  finding  localities  and  obtaining  information  regarding  Sarpi's 
life  from  various  sources  difficult  of  access.  I  am  glad  to  know  that  a  new 
edition  of  his  excellent  work,  with  revisions  and  additions,  is  to  appear  dur- 
ing the  present  year.  Its  author  has  lived  in  Venice  during  many  years  and 
has  had  exceptional  facilities  for  studies  in  Venetian  history,  to  which  he  has 
so  long  been  earnestly  and,  in  the  best  sense,  fruitfully  devoted. 


s 


III 

AEPI'S  battles  for  right  reason  had  apparently  ended. 
The  world  might  well  say, 

"Nor  steel  nor  poison, 
Malice  domestic,  foreign  levy,  nothing 
Can  touch  him  further. ' ' 

Yet  now  came  a  new  warfare  upon  him — one  of  the  most 
virulent  in  human  history,  which  lasted  more  than  two 
hundred  years.  It  contains  especially  instructive  lessons 
for  modern  states  which  may  have  to  deal  with  prob- 
lems created  by  priestly  power. 

Sarpi  had,  indeed,  fought  the  good  fight — and  had  won 
it  for  his  country  and  for  humanity.  For  all  this  the 
Venetian  Eepublic  had,  in  his  later  years,  tried  to  show 
its  gratitude,  though  he  had  quietly  and  firmly  refused 
the  main  gifts  it  offered  him.  At  his  death  came  a  new 
outburst  of  gratitude. 

The  Eepublic  sent  notice  of  his  death  to  other  powers 
of  Europe  through  its  Ambassadors  in  the  terms  usual 
at  the  death  of  royal  personages ;  in  every  way,  it  showed 
its  appreciation  of  his  character  and  services,  and  it 
crowned  all  by  voting  him  a  public  monument. 

Hardly  was  the  decree  known,  when  the  Vatican  au- 
thorities replied  by  a  threat  that,  should  any  monument 
be  erected  to  Sarpi,  they  would  publicly  declare  him  ex- 
communicate as  a  heretic.  At  this,  the  Venetian  Senate 
hesitated,  waited,  delayed.  Whenever  afterwards  the 
idea  of  carrying  out  the  decree  for  his  monument  was 
revived,  opposition  from  Eome  was  bitter. 

Time  went  on,  and  generations  came  which  seemed  to 

37 


38  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

forget  Mm.  Still  worse,  generation  after  generation 
came,  carefully  trained  by  clerical  teachers  to  misunder- 
stand him. 

How  careful  this  training  was  may  be  seen  from 
one  instance,  typical  of  many.  In  1719,  nearly  a  cen- 
tury after  Sarpi's  death,  the  Papal  Nuncio  at  Venice, 
Aldobrandini,  having  secured  information  that  there  was 
preparing  in  that  city  a  new  edition  of  the  great  patriot's 
writings,  wrote  to  Home,  and  the  machinery  of  the  Vati- 
can was  immediately  set  in  motion.  Both  the  Koman  and 
the  Venetian  Inquisitions  intervened  vigorously.  First, 
an  endeavor  was  made  to  stop  the  printing  of  the  work, 
and  this  seemed,  for  a  time,  successful;  but,  the  printer 
having  got  the  better  of  the  inquisitors,  Pope  Clement 
XI  sent  a  certain  Father  Bertolli  to  take  charge  of  the 
business,  and  this  emissary  proved  his  cunning  and  zeal 
by  buying  up  all  the  copies  of  the  new  edition  he  could 
find,  and  so  the  peril  seemed  ended.1 

Three  years  later  came  another  alarm.  In  some  alter- 
ations at  the  old  Church  of  the  Servites,  the  body  of  Fra 
Paolo  was  found,  and,  for  a  wonder,  all  in  excellent 
preservation  save  that  part  of  the  face  which  had  been 
injured  by  the  assassin.  This  aroused  deep  feeling. 
There  were  some  who  saw  in  this  condition  of  Sarpi's 
remains  an  evidence  of  his  sainthood,  and  at  least  one  per- 
son was  so  convinced  that  she  had  been  cured  by  pray- 

i  Original  records  of  the  Roman  Inquisition  and  the  Dataria,  seventy 
quarto  volumes  in  all,  containing  most  curious  documents  regarding  the 
dealings  with  Sarpi's  memory,  trials  and  executions  of  various  heretics, 
and  the  like,  having  been  among  the  papers  carried  off  to  France  in  1809 
under  the  direction  of  Napoleon,  were  not  returned  at  the  restoration  of 
the  Bourbons,  but,  by  a  curious  stroke  of  fate,  found  their  way  int..  tin- 
library  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and  there  they  remain.  They  are 
especially  rich  in  details  concerning  the  finding  of  the  body  of  Father 
Pawl,  and  the  curious  chain  of  circumstances  which  thence  arose,  includ- 
ing various  matters  mentioned  above  in  the  text.  For  the  full  details, 
see  U"o  Balzani,  Di  Alcuni  Documenti  dclV  Archivio  del  Santo  I  ffizio  di 
Roma,  rclativi  al  Ritrovamento  del  Cadavere  di  Paolo  Suri>i,  Rome,  1895. 


SARPI '  39 

ing  at  his  shrine  that  she  hung  up  a  votive  tablet  record- 
ing this  exhibition  of  divine  grace. 

A  vigorous  correspondence  ensued.  The  Holy  Inqui- 
sition at  Eonie  bestirred  itself  and  soon  secured 
information  from  the  best  source,  namely,  from  Father 
Gennari  of  the  Inquisition  in  Venice.  His  letters,  now 
preserved  in  the  library  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  in- 
form us  that  the  chief  medical  authorities  had  made 
examination  and  that  the  remarkable  statement  regarding 
the  preservation  of  the  corpse  was  true ;  but  the  astute- 
ness of  the  Inquisitor  was  equal  to  the  occasion:  he  in- 
formed the  Roman  authorities,  among  other  consoling 
things,  that  sundry  noble  persons  had  declared  that  the 
corpse  "  could  not  be  the  body  of  Father  Paul,  since  his 
soul  and  body  were  in  Hell. ' ' 

And  now  a  new  personage  comes  upon  the  scene,  no  less 
than  that  Father  Bertolli  who,  a  few  years  before,  hav- 
ing been  sent  by  Pope  Clement  XI,  had  succeeded  in  sup- 
pressing the  reprint  of  Father  Paul's  works.  By  dint 
of  diligent  spying,  he  was  able  to  report  to  the  Roman 
authorities  that  a  document  had  been  placed  in  the  coffin, 
at  Father  Paul's  reinterment,  reverently  praising  his 
character,  and  stating  that  his  body  had  been  found  in- 
corrupt, that  this  inscription  was  signed  by  the  Prior 
and  a  number  of  eminent  theologians  of  the  Order,  and 
that  at  the  end  of  it  was  written  a  very  significant  quo- 
tation from  the  109th  Psalm,  at  the  28th  verse,  ''Let  them 
curse,  but  bless  Thou"  (Maledicent  illi,  et  Tu  benedicas). 

The  Holy  Inquisition,  having  read  the  letter  of  Ber- 
tolli, rose  to  the  height  of  the  great  argument,  and  pro- 
posed sundry  persecutions  against  those  who  had  signed 
this  document;  but  Innocent  XIII,  who  had  now  come 
to  the  Papal  throne,  seems  to  have  preserved  more  com- 
mon sense :  he  ordained  that  all  persecution  in  the  matter 
be  deferred. 

The  Papal  Nuncio,  the  Inquisitor,  and  Father  Bertolli 


40  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

now  made  another  effort.  There,  in  the  sacristy  of  the 
Church  of  the  Servites,  was  the  votive  tablet  of  Elizabeth 
Gabrielli,  declaring  that  by  the  intercession  of  Fra  Paolo 
she  had  been  cured  of  a  serious  disease.  A  new  series 
of  letters  passed  to  and  fro,  Father  Bertolli  especially 
insisting  that  the  Inquisitors  should  proceed  in  the  mat- 
ter, and  he  was  finally  successful.  The  tablet  and  one 
or  two  other  tributes  to  Fra  Paolo's  memory  were  re- 
moved. 

Now  occurred  to  the  Papal  Nuncio  another  happy 
thought.  In  a  letter  to  the  Papal  Secretary  of  State 
he  made  a  promise  as  follows:  "I  will  still  give  all  my 
attention,  in  connection  with  the  intelligence  of  the  Father 
Inquisitor  and  of  the  Father  Provincial  Bertolli,  to  an 
endeavor  to  have  the  corpse  confused  with  others  in  the 
church. ' '  In  answer  to  this  the  Holy  Inquisition  at  Eome 
wrote,  approving  this  idea,  and  expressing  the  hope  that 
the  signed  document  might  be  removed  from  the  coffin, 
and  that  the  body  of  Father  Paul  should  be  "confused 
with  others."  * 

This  attempt  to  destroy  the  identity  of  the  corpse  of 
the  great  Venetian  citizen  failed,  but  Father  Bertolli 's 
effort  to  remove  the  laudatory  document  from  the  coffin 
was  at  first  more  successful,  and  in  his  letter  from  Venice 
to  the  Procurator  General  at  Eome,  having  made  a  state- 
ment to  this  effect,  he  piously  adds  the  words,  liTe  Deum 
laudamus." 

But,  after  all,  his  victory  turned  out  to  be  incomplete. 
To  his  infinite  disgust,  one  member  of  the  Venetian  Coun- 
cil of  Three,  which  had  ordered  the  document  to  be  re- 
moved from  the  coffin,  was  patriotic  and  manly  enough 
to  insist  that  "an  honorable  record"  of  the  discovery  of 
Father  Paul 's  remains  be  placed  in  the  coffin,  and  in  this 
he  was  successful.  This  was  a  bad  blow  to  Father  Ber- 
tolli, to  the  Inquisitor  General,  and  to  the  Papal  Nuncio, 

1  See  Balzani,  pp.  10-19,  as  above,  citing  the  letters  now  at  Dublin. 


SARPI  41 

for  it  brought  to  naught  the  only  thing  of  importance 
to  them — namely,  the  plan  of  destroying  the  identity  of 
Fra  Paolo's  corpse.  A  lively  correspondence  between 
the  Eoman  and  Venetian  ecclesiastical  authorities  ensued ; 
but,  alas,  there  remained  in  the  coffin  the  "  honorable 
record," — an  inscription  quite  as  evil  as  the  former  docu- 
ment. It  ran  as  follows:  "The  altar  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin  of  Sorrows  having  been  restored,  this  corpse  has 
been  found,  which,  on  account  of  various  conformities, 
is  believed  to  be  that  of  Fra  Paolo,  a  man  learned  in  all 
sciences."  All  that  had  been  gained  was  that,  whereas 
the  old  document  was  engrossed  on  parchment  in  letters 
of  red,  black,  and  gold,  the  new  record  was  inscribed  on 
ordinary  paper  with  ordinary  ink.  The  vexation  of  the 
baffled  fathers  breaks  out  in  letters  declaring  that  the 
patriotic  member  of  the  Council  of  Three  is  "little  in- 
clined to  piety";  but  the  belief  is  expressed  that,  with  a 
change  at  the  coming  election  of  the  Council  and  "with 
dexterity  and  a  little  time,"  this  new  paper  may  be  got 
out  of  the  coffin  and  abolished. 

Again  Father  Bertolli  set  at  work,  in  an  attempt  to 
secure  and  make  away  with  the  corpse  of  Father  Paul, 
and  to  suppress  the  new  "honorable  record"  in  his  coffin. 

But  the  zealous  father  had  at  last  fallen  on  evil  times : 
the  Venetian  government,  vexed  at  his  intrigues,  ban- 
ished him  from  Venice.  Now  came  his  great  mistake: 
in  order  to  make  good  his  standing  at  Rome,  Bertolli 
forged  a  letter  and  signature  from  the  Secretary  of  the 
Supreme  Tribunal  at  Venice.  The  arm  of  the  dead  Fra 
Paolo  seemed  to  reach  forth  at  once  from  his  coffin  to 
seize  his  enemy,  for  the  law  which  asserted  the  right  of 
the  Eepublic  to  punish  criminal  priests,  and  which  the 
monk-statesman  had  vindicated  against  Pope  Paul  V, 
was  immediately  put  in  force: — Bertolli  was  seized  at 
Padua,  brought  to  Venice,  and  condemned  to  five  years' 
imprisonment  "in  one  of  the  dark  dungeons  beneath  the 


42  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

tribunal."  Any  one  of  the  thousands  who  have  visited 
those  noisome  cells  must  confess  that  the  poor  zealot  was 
at  last  dealt  with  in  full  measure.  Fortunately  for  him, 
after  three  years  of  this  imprisonment  he  was  pardoned, 
and  thenceforth  appears  to  have  passed  his  time  mainly 
in  seeking  recognition  or  remuneration  from  the  Vatican 
authorities,  who,  as  they  did  not  wish  to  irritate  the 
Venetian  Republic  farther,  appear  to  have  treated  him 
coldly, — as  coldly,  indeed,  as  they  had  treated  the  Ro- 
man assassins  after  their  failure  to  kill  Fra  Paolo  a  cen- 
tury before. 

So  disappears  from  the  scene  the  great  effort  of  the 
two  Inquisitions  and  Bertolli,  with  all  their  innumerable 
cipher  dispatches,  reports  of  spying,  assurances  of  suc- 
cess, clever  forgery,  and  Jesuitry  of  various  sorts,  the 
only  result  having  been  to  increase  among  thinking  Vene- 
tians veneration  and  love  for  the  memory  of  their 
" Brother  Paul."1 

Fifty  years  more  now  rolled  over  the  dead  patriot's 
coffin,  and  in  1771  another  campaign  was  begun  against 
his  memory.  The  former  effort  was  directed  to  making 
the  Venetians  forget  Father  Paul;  now  the  attempt  was 
to  make  them  despise  him,  and  the  monk  Vaerini  gathered 
together,  in  a  pretended  biography,  masses  of  scurrility 
and  endeavored  to  bury  the  memory  of  the  great  patriot 
beneath  them.  This  was  too  much.  The  old  Venetian 
spirit,  which  had  so  long  lain  dormant,  now  asserted  it- 
self:   Vaerini  was  imprisoned  and  his  book  suppressed. 

A  quarter  of  a  century  later  the  Republic  fell  under 
the  rule  of  Austria,  and  Austria's  most  time-honored 
agency  in  keeping  down  subject  populations  has  always 
been  the  priesthood.2    Again  Father  Paul's  memory  was 

i  The  full  account,  with  citations  from  the  letters  and  documents,  is 
given  by  Balzani,  p.  22,  et  seq.,  as  above. 

2  See,  for  example,  the  "Catechismo  Politico,"  promoted  by  King  "Bomba" 


SARPI  43 

virtually  proscribed,  and  in  1803  another  desperate  at- 
tempt was  made  to  cover  him  with  infamy.  In  that  year 
appeared  a  book  entitled  "The  Secret  History  of  the 
Life  of  Fra  Paolo  Sarpi,"  and  it  contained  not  only  his 
pretended  biography,  but  what  claimed  to  be  Sarpi  's  own 
letters  and  other  documents  showing  him  to  be  an  adept  in 
scoundrelism  and  hypocrisy.  Its  editor  was  the  arch- 
priest  Ferrari  of  Mantua ;  but  on  the  title-page  appeared, 
as  the  name  of  its  author,  Fontanini,  Archbishop  of  An- 
cira,  a  greatly  respected  prelate  who  had  died  nearly 
seventy  years  before,  and  there  was  also  stamped,  not 
only  upon  the  preliminary,  but  upon  the  final  page  of  the 
work,  the  approval  of  the  Austrian  government.  To  this 
was  added  a  pious  motto  from  St.  Augustine,  and  the 
approval  of  Pius  VII  was  distinctly  implied,  since  the 
work  was  never  placed  upon  the  Index,  and  could  not 
have  been  published  at  Venice,  stamped  as  it  was  and 
registered  with  the  privileges  of  the  University,  without 
the  consent  of  the  highest  church  authority. 

The  memory  of  Father  Paul  seemed  likely  now  to  be 
overwhelmed.  There  was  no  longer  a  Republic  of  Venice 
to  guard  the  noble  traditions  of  his  life  and  service. 
The  book  was  recommended  and  spread  far  and  wide  by 
preachers  and  confessors. 

But  at  last  came  a  day  of  judgment.  The  director  of 
the  Venetian  archives  discovered  and  had  the  courage  to 
announce  that  the  work  was  a  pious  fraud  of  the  vilest 
type;  that  it  was  never  written  by  Fontanini,  but 
that  it  was  simply  made  up  out  of  the  old  scurril- 
ous work  of  Vaerini,  suppressed  over  thirty  years  before. 
As  to  the  correspondence  served  up  as  supplementary 
to  the  biography,  it  was  concocted  from  garbled  letters 

of  Naples  and  Archbishop  Apuzzo  of  Sorrento,  but  really  written  before 
their  time  by  Leopardi,  father  of  the  philosopher  of  that  name,  as  de- 
scribed in  the  article  in  this  volume  on  Cavour. 


44  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

already  published.1  Now  came  the  inevitable  reaction, 
and  with  it  the  inevitable  increase  of  hatred  for  Austrian 
rule  and  the  inevitable  question,  how,  if  the  Pope  is  the 
infallible  teacher  of  the  world  in  all  matters  pertaining  to 
faith  and  morals,  could  he  virtually  approve  this  book, 
and  why  did  he  not,  by  virtue  of  his  inerrancy,  detect  the 
fraud  and  place  its  condemnation  upon  the  Index.  The 
only  lasting  effect  of  the  book,  then,  was  to  revive  the 
memory  of  Father  Paul's  great  deeds  and  to  arouse  Vene- 
tian pride  in  them. 

But  the  same  sort  of  hatred  which,  in  our  own  day, 
grudged  and  delayed  due  honors  at  the  tombs  of  Coper- 
nicus and  Galileo  among  Catholics,  and  of  Humboldt 
among  Protestants,  was  still  bitter  against  the  great 
Venetian  scholar  and  statesman.  It  could  not  be  forgot- 
ten that  he  had  wrested  from  the  Vatican  the  most  terrible 
of  its  weapons,  and,  as  a  result  of  this  remembrance,  even 
rest  in  the  grave  had  been  for  some  years  denied  him. 
The  Church  of  the  Servites,  where  he  had  been  first 
buried  and  reburied,  having  been  demolished,  a  ques- 
tion had  arisen  as  to  the  disposition  of  his  remains.  To 
bury  them  openly  outside  the  old  convent  was  certain  to 
arouse  a  storm  of  ecclesiastical  hostility,  which  would 
have  dispersed  and  desecrated  them :  therefore  it  was  that 
his  admirers  took  them  from  place  to  place,  sometimes 
concealing  them  in  the  wall  of  a  church  here,  sometimes 
beneath  a  pavement  there,  and,  for  a  time,  keeping  them 
in  a  wooden  box  at  the  Ducal  Library.  Six  times 
were  they  thus  buried  and  reburied,  and  the  place  where 
they  rested  became  to  most  Venetians  unknown.  All  that 
was  left  to  remind  Italy  of  him  was  the  portrait  in  the 
Ducal  Library,  showing  the  great  gash  made  by  the  Vati- 

i  For  a  full  and  fair  statement  of  the  researches  which  exposed  this 
pious  fraud,  see  Castellani,  Prefect  of  the  Library  of  St.  Mark,  preface 
to  his  Lettere  Inedite  di  F.  P.  8.,  p.  xvii.  For  methods  used  in  interpo- 
lating or  modifying  passages  in  Sarpi's  writings,  see  Bianchi-Giovini, 
Biografia  di  Sarpi,  2d  ed.,  Zurich,  1847,  vol.  ii,  pp.  135  et  aeq. 


SARPI  45. 

can  assassins.  But  this  spoke  ever  more  and  more  elo- 
quently, and  so  it  was  that  patriotic  men  throughout  the 
peninsula  joined  in  proposing  a  suitable  reburial.  The 
place  chosen  was  the  beautiful  island  of  San  Michele. 
Thither  had  for  many  years  been  borne  the  remains  of 
eminent  Venetians.  There,  too,  in  later  days,  have  been 
laid  to  rest  many  respected  and  beloved  in  other  lands, 
including  our  own.  This  movement  met  the  usual  clerical 
hostility,  and  a  long  correspondence  between  the  leaders 
in  it  and  the  Papal  Consul  at  Venice  ensued.  But  pa- 
triotic pride  was  strong,  and  finally  a  compromise  was 
made:  it  was  arranged  that  Sarpi  should  be  buried  and 
honored  at  his  burial  as  an  eminent  man  of  science,  and 
that  no  word  should  be  spoken  of  his  main  services  to  the 
Republic  and  to  the  world. 

Soon,  however,  began  another  chapter  of  hatred. 
There  had  come  a  Pope  who  added  personal  to  official 
hostility.  Gregory  XVI,  who  in  his  earlier  days  had  been 
abbot  of  the  monastery  of  San  Michele,  was  indig- 
nant that  the  friar  who  had  thwarted  the  Vatican  should 
lie  buried  in  the  convent  which  he  himself  had  formerly 
ruled,  and  this  feeling  took  shape,  first,  in  violent 
speeches  at  Borne,  and  next,  in  brutal  acts  at  Venice. 
The  monks  broke  and  removed  the  simple  stone  placed 
over  the  remains  of  Father  Paul,  and,  when  it  was  re- 
placed, they  persisted  in  defacing  and  breaking  it,  and 
were  only  prevented  from  dragging  out  his  bones,  dis- 
honoring them,  and  casting  them  into  the  lagoon,  by  the 
weight  of  the  massive,  strong,  well-anchored  sarcophagus, 
which  the  wise  foresight  of  his  admirers  had  provided  for 
them.  At  three  different  visits  to  Venice,  the  present 
writer  sought  the  spot  where  they  were  laid,  and  in  vain. 
At  the  second  of  these  visits,  he  found  the  Patriarch  of 
Venice,  under  whose  rule  various  outrages  upon  Sarpi 's 
memory  had  been  perpetrated,  pontificating  gorgeously 
about  the  Grand  Piazza:  but  at  his  next  visit  there  had 


46  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

come  a  change.  The  monks  had  disappeared.  Their  in- 
sults to  the  illustrious  dead  had  been  stopped  by  the 
Kingdom  of  Italy,  which  had  expelled  them  from  their 
convent,  and  there,  near  the  vestibule  and  aisle  of  the 
great  church,  were  the  tombs  of  Father  Paul  and  of  the 
late  Patriarch  side  by  side;  the  great  patriot's  simple 
gravestone  was  now  allowed  to  rest  unbroken.1 

Better  even  than  this  was  the  reaction  provoked  by 
these  outbursts  of  ecclesiastical  hatred.  It  was  felt,  in 
Venice,  throughout  Italy,  and  indeed  throughout  the 
world,  that  the  old  decree  for  a  monument  should  now 
be  made  good.  The  first  steps  were  hesitating.  First, 
a  bust  of  Father  Paul  was  placed  among  those  of  great 
Venetians  in  the  court  of  the  Ducal  Palace;  but  the  in- 
scription upon  it  was  timid  and  double-tongued.  Another 
bust  was  placed  on  the  Pincian  Hill  at  Rome,  among 
those  of  the  most  renowned  sons  of  Italy;  but  this  was 
not  enough:  a  suitable  monument  must  be  erected.  Yet 
it  was  long  delayed,  timid  men  deprecating  the  hostility 
of  the  Roman  Court. 

This  hostility  burst  forth  at  various  centres.  There 
came  the  old  "fool  fury,"  with  new  spasms  of  hatred. 
If  the  fanatics  could  not  tear  the  great  statesman's  body 
from  its  last  resting-place,  they  might  possibly  tear  re- 
spect for  him  from  Italian  hearts  by  reviving  old  calum- 
nies and  inventing  new. 

The  great  mass  of  these  were  contemptible,  but  two  of 
them,  having  been  reiterated  here  and  there  even  to  this 
hour,  seem  to  deserve  mention. 

First  of  these  was  the  charge  that  Fra  Paolo  was  a 
hypocrite;  that  he  was  at  heart  a  Protestant;  that  he 
sought  to  undermine  the  faith  he  practiced. 

i  The  present  writer  was  shown,  by  the  late  Lord  Acton,  and  allowed 
to  read  many  of  the  original  documents  in  the  correspondence  between  the 
Papal  council  and  the  Venetian  authorities  regarding  Brother  Paul's  re- 
burial. 


SARPI  47 

Various  proofs  were  alleged.  One  of  these  was  his 
association  with  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  Bishop  Bedell,  and 
other  leading  Protestants  who  visited  Venice.  Another 
was  his  correspondence  with  learned  men  throughout 
Europe  without  regard  to  creed.  Most  important  of  all 
was  the  testimony  of  Lebret,  who  in  his  Historical  Maga- 
zine had  reported  that  one  Linckh,  an  agent  of  the  German 
Elector  Palatine,  had  reported  that  one  Pessenti  had  told 
him  that  at  Venice  there  existed  a  secret  society  plotting 
disruption  from  Rome,  and  that  this  society  was  mainly 
directed  by  Sarpi.  Lebret  also  reported  that  Linckh 
claimed  to  have  obtained  additional  proofs  of  this  con- 
spiracy in  conversation  with  the  British  ambassador  at 
Venice  and  indeed  with  Sarpi  himself;  that  Sarpi  had 
shown  dislike  of  sundry  Church  dogmas,  desire  for  re- 
forms, and  inclination  to  Protestant  methods. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  Diodati,  a  most  devout  Italian 
Protestant  and  noted  Italian  translator  of  the  Bible,  al- 
ways lamented  that  Sarpi,  despite  his  nobility  of  char- 
acter and  breadth  of  view,  could  not  be  induced  to  become 
a  Protestant  or  to  countenance  any  effort  to  establish 
Protestantism  in  Italy.  Even  more  convincing  was  the 
testimony  of  all  those  nearest  Sarpi  at  Venice:  without 
exception  they  testified  to  his  determination  not  to  sep- 
arate himself  from  the  Mother  Church. 

Most  convincing  of  all  is  the  fact  that,  resting  mainly 
on  hearsay  evidence  of  a  very  worthless  kind,  this  charge 
contradicts  the  whole  testimony  of  Sarpi 's  life.  As  a 
politician,  in  the  highest  sense,  he  was  of  all  men  least 
likely  to  give  away  to  a  foreign  emissary  thoughts  and 
plans  as  perilous  to  his  country  as  to  himself. 

As  a  statesman,  he  knew  well  that  Protestantism  in 
Venice  would  be  an  exotic ;  that  the  Venetian  atmosphere 
would  stifle  it;  that  the  attempt  to  introduce  it  would 
provoke  civil  strife,  reaction,  and  massacre,  thus  giving 
to  the  Vatican  and  Spain  the  best  excuse  possible  for  in- 


48  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

tervention, — thus  making  his  beloved  country,  to  which 
he  so  fully  and  freely  gave  his  life,  their  easy  prey. 

As  a  man,  while  he  undoubtedly  longed  for  large  re- 
forms in  the  Church,  there  were  many  reasons  why  Prot- 
estantism as  it  existed  in  his  time  must  be  repulsive  to 
him.    He  was  a  thoughtful,  quiet  scholar — large-minded 
and  tolerant.    If  he  looked  toward  Great  Britain  he  saw 
Protestant  quarrels  leading  to  unreason,  riot,  and  mur- 
der.    If  he  looked  toward  France  he  saw  the  nobler 
qualities  of  the  reformed  faith  hopelessly  alloyed  with  a 
bigotry  often  cruel  and  sometimes  vile.    If  he  looked 
toward  the  Netherlands  he  saw  Calvinists  and  Arminians, 
Eemonstrants  and  Contra-Bemonstrants,  anxious  above 
all  things  to  cut  each  other's  throats,  and  he  also  saw 
his  admired  Grotius  only  escaping  death  first  by  impris- 
onment and  next  by  exile.    If  he  looked  toward  Germany 
he  saw  Lutherans  and  Calvinists  thwarting,  denouncing, 
and  persecuting  each  other;  he  remembered  how  the 
deathbed  of  Melanchthon,  whose  memory  as  a  scholar  he 
must  have  cherished,  had  been  embittered  by  Protestant 
heresy-hunters ;  he  must  have  regarded  with  loathing  the 
men  then  dominant  in  the  German  Protestant  Church — 
whose  ideal  was  Carpzov,  with  his  boast  that  he  had  read 
the  Bible  through  more  than  fifty  times,  had  brought  tor- 
ture to  perfection,  and  had  sent  witches  to  the  scaffold  by 
thousands.     Sarpi  must  have  seen  what  Thomasius,  the 
leader  in  the  second  great  reformation  in  Germany,  saw 
and  stated  to  a  later  generation — that  under  those  who 
bore  rule  after  the  death  of  Luther  "the  wooden  yoke 
of  the  Papacy  had  been  changed  into  a  yoke  of  iron." 
That  feelings  of  this  kind  came  over  the  great  Venetian 
appears  not  only  in  his  recorded  conversations  but  in  his 
letters.1 

Naturally,  then,  does  Daru  declare  the  whole  charge  to 
rest  on  evidence  which  lacks  authenticity  and  which,  if 

i  See  Klemperer  Ch.  Thomasius,  chap,  ii,  p.  21. 


SARPI  49 

authentic,  would  be  inconclusive.  Naturally  also  does 
Cantu,  a  devout  Catholic  prejudiced  strongly  against 
Sarpi,  dismiss  the  whole  charge  with  evident  contempt: 
in  a  masterly  summing  up  of  the  whole  matter  he  shows 
that  Sarpi 's  attitude  was  that  of  a  Venetian  Catholic 
patriot  defending  his  country  against  the  Vatican  and 
Spain, — that  he  was  a  political  genius  far  too  shrewd  to 
throw  himself  into  a  movement  so  fatal  to  his  country.1 

The  second  charge  appears,  at  first  sight,  much  more 
serious. 

It  is  founded  on  a  document  ascribed  to  Fra  Paolo  giv- 
ing general  advice  to  the  Venetian  government  as  to  the 
best  methods  of  governing  and  perpetuating  the  Repub- 
lic.2 

The  work  shows  insight  and  foresight.  Passages  in 
it  are  well  worthy  of  the  great  statesman;  and  one  of 
them,  especially,  seems  to  mirror  his  spirit.  It  reads: 
"Whenever  the  word  of  a  sovereign  power  is  given,  it 
must  be  made  good,  no  matter  at  what  cost.  Breaches 
of  faith  cost  dear.  How  can  a  second  promise  be  of  use 
when  the  first  has  been  broken?" 

But  the  work,  as  a  whole,  is  thoroughly  Machiavellian. 
It  advises  transferring  power,  insensibly,  by  every  sort 
of  artifice,  from  the  many  to  the  few;  undermining  the 
influence  of  the  people  by  creating  divisions  among  them ; 
weakening  colonies  by  whatever  form  of  inhumanity  may 
serve  best ;  weakening  Italian  States  in  which  Venice  had 
a  foothold  by  bribing  popular  leaders,  and,  if  necessary, 
exterminating  them ;  and  as  to  this  extermination  the  au- 

i  For  a  full  statement  of  the  Linekh  matter,  see  Daru,  Histoire  de  Venise, 
Paris,  1819-21,  t.  iv,  pp.  315  et  seq.,  and  note.  For  Cantu's  treatment  of 
the  subject,  see  his  Heretiques  d'ltalie,  tome  iv,  pp.  149  et  seq.  For  the 
testimony  of  Fra  Paolo's  letters,  see  especially  that  to  Leschassier  of 
Jan.  23,  1610. 

2  The  title  of  this  document  is  "Opinione  del  Padre  Fra  Paolo  Servita 
.     .     .     in   qual   modo   debba  governarsi   la   Republica   Veneziana   interna- 
mente  e  esternamente  per  aver  perpetuo  dominio,"  etc.,  etc.     See  Daru,  as 
above,  vol.  v,  pp.  574  et  seq.     There  is  an  old  English  translation,  1693. 
4 


50  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

thor  says,  "Let  poison  do  the  work  of  the  executioner. 
It  is  less  odious  and  more  serviceable." 

If  this  work  were  authentic  it  should  be  remembered 
that  it  was  written  in  the  heat  and  passion  of  the  struggle 
of  Venice  against  Europe  and  especially  of  its  hand  to 
hand  fight  for  life  against  the  Vatican  and  Spain.  It 
might  thus  be  classed  with  sundry  extravagant  utterances 
of  Luther  in  the  fury  of  mortal  combat.  It  should  also 
be  remembered  that  it  appeared  at  a  time  when  the  ideas 
of  Machiavelli  were  very  generally  adopted  both  in  theory 
and  practice,  forming  the  basis  of  international  rights, — 
the  period  before  the  De  jure  belli  ac  pacts  of  Grotius 
had  brought  into  public  law  the  nobler  ideas  and  methods 
which  have  rendered  diplomacy  less  scoundrelly  and  war 
less  cruel. 

But  it  is  far  from  probable  that  Father  Paul  wrote  the 
book.  The  better  opinion  seems  to  be  that  he  did  not. 
His  authorship  of  the  work  is,  indeed,  loosely  taken  for 
granted  by  Daru,  Cantu,  and  sundry  others ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  so  eminent  an  authority  as  Komanin  dissents 
from  this  view,  with  the  result  that  the  latest  Jesuit  op- 
ponent of  Sarpi  does  not  insist  upon  the  point.  The 
treatise  does  not  appear  in  the  standard  edition  of 
Sarpi 's  works,  and  is  to  be  found  only  at  the  end  of  a 
collection  thrown  together  by  a  Venetian  publisher,  and 
even  this  publisher,  in  reprinting  the  collection  five  years 
later,  speaks  of  it  as  "falsely  attributed  to  Fra  Paolo." 
Sundry  special  editions  of  it  have  been  issued  from  time 
to  time,  among  them  one  in  English,  but  none  of  them 
in  the  slightest  degree  authoritative.  To  all  this  should 
be  added  the  fact  that  the  Doge  Marco  Foscarini  and  the 
biographer  Griselini  denied  strongly  Sarpi 's  authorship 
of  any  such  work.  Professor  Emmanuel  Cicogna,  an 
authority  of  the  highest  rank,  states  cogently  the  reasons 
for  believing  it  to  be  a  forgery,  and  gives  the  name  of 
one    Casale    as    the    probable    forger.    Bianchi-Giovini 


SARPI  51 

points  out  a  number  of  peculiarities,  in  the  arrangement 
and  style  of  the  work,  differing  totally  from  those  of 
Fra  Paolo.  Castellani,  head  of  the  City  Library  at 
Venice,  one  of  the  foremost  living  authorities  regarding 
Venetian  matters,  in  a  contribution  to  his  official  work 
on  Venetian  history,  the  Lettere  Inedite  di  Sarpi,  puts 
the  "Advice"  aside  as  utterly  discredited,  and  attributes 
Cantu 's  opinion  of  it  to  carelessness. 

It  dates  from  a  time  when  nothing  was  more  common 
than  forging  documents  and  interpolating  false  passages 
in  authentic  documents,  in  order  to  aid  special  interests 
or  movements.  Cantu  himself  on  this  ground  throws 
doubt  upon  another  publication  ascribed  much  more 
generally,  and  with  much  more  reason,  to  Fra  Paolo.1 

So  much  for  these  two  specific  charges.  But,  beside 
these,  writers  holding  a  brief  for  Ultramontane  ideas 
have  repeatedly  uttered  vague  calumnies  upon  his 
general  character,  calling  him  a  "bad  priest"  who  "hated 
the  Vatican  because  he  had  not  been  made  a  Bishop."  2 

That  his  character  was  infinitely  above  unworthy  mo- 
tives is  testified  by  all  who  knew  him  best,  by  the 
evidently  noble  aim  of  his  works,  by  the  whole  tenor  of 
his  life.  They  who  slander  him  really  slander  the 
Church  which  gave  him  his  environment,  and  also  slander 
such  great  figures  in  the  history  of  the  Church  as  the  men 
who  at  one  time  or  another  rejoiced  in  his  acquaintance 
or  companionship  or  friendship : — churchmen  like  St. 
Charles    Borromeo    and     Bellarmine;    statesmen    like 

i  For  various  facts  controverting  the  theory  that  Sarpi  wrote  the  book, 
see  Bianchi-Giovini,  Florentine  edition  of  1849,  vol.  i,  pp.  425  et  seq. 
Also,  article  in  Westminster  Review,  vol.  xxix,  p.  146.  For  the  testimony  of 
Cicogna,  see  his  Iscrizioni  Yenezianc,  vol.  iii.  For  Cantu,  see  his 
Heretiques,  as  above,  vol.  iv,  p.  130.  For  Romanin,  see  his  Storia  Docu- 
mentata,  and,  for  the  recent  view  referred  to,  see  the  Jesuit  Father  T.  J. 
Campbell,  in  The  Messenger  for  March,  1904. 

2  The  main  source  of  these  slanders — the  central  "mud  volcano,"  as 
Carlyle  would  have  called  it — seems  to  have  been  in  recent  years  the  main 
Jesuit  organ  at  Rome:  the  Osservatore  Romano. 


52  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Leonardo  Donato  and  Morosini;  men  of  science  like  Gali- 
leo, Acquapendente,  and  Battista  Porta;  and,  besides 
these  Italians,  foreigners  of  the  highest  character  in  all 
these  fields,  like  Wotton,  Bedell,  and  Gilbert  in  England, 
Mornay  and  Asselineau  in  France,  and  many  others  of 
similar  character  throughout  Europe. 

Despite,  then,  all  calumnies,  hysterics,  and  pressure — 
largely,  indeed,  on  account  of  them — the  patriotic  move- 
ment under  the  new  Italian  monarchy  now  became  irre- 
sistible. It  swept  Italy;  but  it  was  much  more  than  a 
mere  wave  of  popular  sentiment.  It  was  the  result  of 
deep  feeling  based  upon  patriotism  and  love  of  humanity : 
the  same  feeling  which  erected,  despite  similar  opposi- 
tion, the  splendid  statue  to  Giordano  Bruno  in  the  Campo 
dei  Fiori  at  Rome,  on  the  spot  where  he  had  been 
burned,  and  which  adorned  it  with  the  medallions  of 
eight  other  martyrs  to  ecclesiastical  hatred. 

So  it  came  that  in  1892,  two  hundred  and  seventy 
years  after  it  had  been  decreed,  there  rose  a  statue — to 
Paolo  Sarpi — on  the  Piazza  Santa  Fosca  at  Venice,  where 
he  had  been  left  for  dead  by  the  Eoman  assassins.  There 
it  stands,  noble  and  serene:  a  monument  of  patriotism 
and  right  reason,  a  worthy  tribute  to  one  who,  among 
intellectual  prostitutes  and  solemnly  constituted  im- 
postors, stood  forth  as  a  true  man,  the  greatest  of  his 
time — one  of  the  greatest  of  all  times — an  honor  to 
Venice,  to  Italy,  to  the  Church  Universal,  and  to  Hu- 
manity. 


GBOTIUS 


GROTIUS 
I 

OF  all  tyrannies  of  unreason  in  the  modern  world,  one 
holds  a  supremely  evil  preeminence.  It  covered  the 
period  from  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  to  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth,  and  throughout  those  hundred 
years  was  waged  a  war  of  hatreds, — racial,  religious, 
national,  and  personal; — of  ambitions,  ecclesiastical  and 
civil; — of  aspirations,  patriotic  and  selfish; — of  efforts, 
noble  and  vile.  During  all  those  weary  generations 
Europe  became  one  broad  battlefield, — drenched  in 
human  blood  and  lighted  from  innumerable  scaffolds. 

In  this  confused  struggle  great  men  appeared — heroes 
and  martyrs,  ruffians  and  scoundrels:  all  was  anarchic. 
The  dominant  international  gospel  was  that  of  Machia- 
velli. 

Into  the  very  midst  of  all  this  welter  of  evil,  at  a  point 
in  time  to  all  appearance  hopeless,  at  a  point  in  space 
apparently  defenseless,  in  a  nation  of  which  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  was  under  sentence  of  death  from  its 
sovereign,  was  born  a  man  who  wrought  as  no  other  has 
ever  done  for  a  redemption  of  civilization  from  the  main 
cause  of  all  that  misery;  who  thought  out  for  Europe 
the  precepts  of  right  reason  in  international  law;  who 
made  them  heard ;  who  gave  a  noble  change  to  the  course 
of  human  affairs;  whose  thoughts,  reasonings,  sugges- 
tions, and  appeals  produced  an  environment  in  which 
came  an  evolution  of  humanity  that  still  continues. 

Huig  de  Groot,  afterward  known  to  the  world  as  Hugo 
Grotius,  was  born  at  Delft  in  Holland  on  Easter  day  of 

55 


56  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

1583.  It  was  at  the  crisis  of  the  struggle  between  Spain 
and  the  Netherlands.  That  struggle  had  already  con- 
tinued for  twenty  years,  and  just  after  the  close  of  his 
first  year,  in  the  very  town  where  he  was  lying  in  his 
cradle,  came  its  most  fearful  event,  that  which  maddened 
both  sides — the  assassination  of  William  of  Orange, 
nominally  by  Balthazar  Gerard,  really  by  Philip  II  of 
Spain. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  fearful  period.  From  Spain,  fifteen 
years  before  his  birth,  the  Holy  Inquisition  had  sent 
forth,  with  the  solemn  sanction  of  Philip  II,  the  edict 
which  condemned  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  Netherlands 
to  death  as  heretics.  In  France,  eleven  years  before  his 
birth,  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  had  stimulated 
religious  wars,  interspersed  with  new  massacres,  the 
sacking  of  towns,  the  assassination  of  rulers  and  leaders. 
Less  than  seven  years  before  his  birth  this  French  ex- 
ample had  been  followed  in  the  great  massacre  of  Ant- 
werp, which  filled  his  country  with  horror.  In  Italy  a 
succession  of  pontiffs  and  princes,  moved  sometimes  by 
fanaticism,  but  generally  by  greed,  were  carrying  out 
their  plans  with  fire  and  slaughter.  In  Great  Britain 
Elizabeth  was  in  her  last  days — but  still  great,  gifted, 
and  cruel.  Throughout  Germany  were  threatenings  of  a 
storm  worse  than  any  which  had  preceded  it :  for,  though 
the  religious  Peace  of  Augsburg  in  1555  had  established 
toleration,  it  was  a  toleration  which,  being  based  upon 
the  whims  of  individual  rulers,  settled  nothing;  all 
Europe  was  darkened  by  the  shadow  of  the  great  coming 
calamity,  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 

The  child  had  from  his  birth  the  best  of  all  heritages. 
For  he  came  of  a  good,  pure,  sound  ancestry.  Among 
his  great-grandfathers  were  the  De  Cornets, — driven 
from  France  by  religious  persecution — among  those 
Huguenots  who  proved  of  such  immense  value  to  every 
country  which  received  them.    Among  his  immediate  an- 


GKOTIUS  57 

cestors  was  a  line  of  state  servants  brave  and  true.  His 
father  was  four  times  Burgomaster  of  Delft,  one  of  the 
Curators  of  the  University  of  Leyden,  and  a  Councilor 
of  State. 

But  barely  had  the  child  begun  to  lisp  when  a  great 
danger  beset  him — his  precocity.  All  his  powers,  moral 
and  intellectual,  seemed  developed  preternaturally.  In 
his  tenth  year  his  Latin  verses  won  the  applause  of 
scholars ;  in  his  eleventh  year  poets  addressed  him  as  a 
second  Erasmus ;  at  twelve  years  he  was  admitted  to  the 
University  of  Leyden.  The  chances  seemed  that  he 
would  bloom  out  as  a  mere  prodigy — an  insufferable 
prig ;  then  fade,  and  never  be  heard  of  more. 

But  his  parents  seem  to  have  been  more  sensible  than 
is  usual  in  such  cases:  they  sent  him  early  from  home 
and  placed  him  among  men  to  whom  he  was  sure  to  look 
up  with  reverence.  At  the  University  he  fell  under  the 
influence  of  Joseph  Justus  Scaliger.  The  genius  of  the 
youth  bridged  the  chasm  of  years  which  separated  him 
from  the  renowned  scholar,  and  they  became  intimate 
friends. 

Two  years  after  his  entrance  at  the  University  he  threw 
learned  Europe  into  astonishment  by  a  work  which  would 
not  have  been  unworthy  of  a  veteran  in  the  republic  of 
letters — a  revision  of  the  old  encyclopaedia  of  Martianus 
Capella,  made  up  of  "The  Marriage  of  Mercury  with 
Philology"  and  "The  Seven  Treatises  on  the  Liberal 
Arts."  This  labor  was  great.  The  subjects  treated  by 
Capella  covered  the  whole  range  of  education,  and  to 
each  the  young  scholar  gave  most  thorough  study,  finding 
what  every  ancient  author  had  thought  upon  them. 

In  rapid  succession  he  also  published  a  translation  of 
Simon  Stevin  on  Navigation,  and  an  edition  of  Aratus 
on  Astronomy,  which  gave  the  young  man  repute  as  a 
mathematician;  and  at  the  same  time  he  continued  writ- 
ing Latin  verses  which  increased  his  fame  as  a  classical 


58  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

scholar  and  poet, — as  scholarship  and  poetry  were  then 
understood. 

At  the  age  of  fifteen,  after  the  fashion  of  the  period,  he 
held  public  disputes  in  mathematics,  philosophy,  and 
jurisprudence.  His  fame  spread  far  and  wide.  He  was 
recognized  as  the  wonder  of  the  University. 

In  1598,  the  Netherlands  sent  an  embassy  to  King 
Henry  IV  of  France.  It  meant  much,  for  it  seemed  to 
bear  the  fortunes  of  the  Eepublic.  Hitherto  France  had 
sheltered  the  Netherlands  by  her  own  war  with  Spain, 
but  now  there  was  talk  throughout  Europe  of  peace  be- 
tween the  two  great  powers,  and,  if  this  peace  were  not 
prevented,  or  if  a  treaty  were  not  most  skillfully  made, 
the  Netherlands  might  awake  some  morning  to  find  them- 
selves exposed  to  the  whole  might  of  Philip  II, — to  his 
hatred  of  their  heresy  and  to  his  vengeance  for  their 
rebellion.  To  meet  this  emergency  the  Dutch  Republic 
sent  to  Paris  the  Admiral  of  Zealand,  Justin  of  Nassau, 
and  John  van  Barneveld,  its  greatest  statesman;  with 
these  went  Grotius  as  an  attache. 

He  now  incurred  a  new  risk.  His  reputation  had 
reached  France.  Men  of  high  position  crowded  about 
him,  and  Henry  IV  with  his  own  hand  hung  his  portrait 
upon  the  youth's  neck;  but  the  moral  powers  of  Grotius 
were  as  fully  developed  as  his  intellectual  gifts :  his  sober 
judgment  shielded  him  from  flattery;  all  this  distinction, 
instead  of  spoiling,  stimulated  him;  he  did  not  loiter 
among  flatterers,  but  returned  to  Holland  and  again  took 
up  his  work  as  a  scholar. 

And  he  avoided  another  danger  as  serious  as  his  pre- 
cocity had  been.  He  steered  clear  of  the  quicksands  of 
useless  scholarship,  which  had  engulfed  so  many  strong 
men  of  his  time.  The  zeal  of  learned  men  in  that  period 
was  largely  given  to  knowing  things  not  worth  knowing, 
to  discussing  things  not  worth  discussing,  to  proving 
things  not  worth  proving.     Grotius  seemed  plunging  on, 


GROTIUS  59 

with  all  sails  set,  into  these  quicksands;  but  again  his 
good  sense  and  sober  judgment  saved  him:  he  decided 
to  bring  himself  into  the  current  of  active  life  flowing 
through  his  land  and  time,  and  with  this  purpose  he 
gave  himself  to  the  broad  and  thorough  study  of  juris- 
prudence. 

He  was  only  in  his  seventeenth  year  when  he  was  called 
to  plead  his  first  case.  It  gained  him  much  credit. 
Other  successes  rapidly  followed  and  he  was  soon  made 
Advocate  General  of  the  Treasury  for  the  Provinces  of 
Holland  and  Zealand. 

A  new  danger  now  beset  him, — the  danger  of  becoming 
simply  a  venal  pleader,  a  creature  who  grinds  out  argu- 
ments on  this  or  that  side,  for  this  or  that  client : — a  mere 
legal  beast  of  prey.  Fortunately  for  himself  and  for  the 
world  he  took  a  higher  view  of  his  life-work:  his  deter- 
mination clearly  was  to  make  himself  a  thoroughly 
equipped  jurist,  and  then,  as  he  rose  more  and  more  in 
his  profession,  to  use  his  powers  for  the  good  of  his 
country  and  of  mankind. 

But  he  made  no  effort  to  attract  notice,  and  one  striking 
evidence  of  his  reserve  and  modesty  was  discovered  only 
after  more  than  two  centuries,  when,  in  1868,  there  was 
found,  in  a  bookshop  at  The  Hague,  an  old  manuscript 
never  before  published,  but  written  by  Grotius  in  1604,  its 
title  being  De  jure  prcedce.  In  this  manuscript,  prepared 
during  his  twenty-second  year,  were  found  not  merely  the 
germs  but,  in  large  measure,  the  bloom  of  many  ideas  and 
trains  of  thought  which  gave  to  his  later  works  such  vast 
value. 

He  had  evidently  felt  that  his  thought  on  these  great 
subjects  was  not  sufficiently  mature ;  but  five  years  later, 
in  1609,  when  a  conflict  of  interests  between  the  Nether- 
lands and  Portugal  seemed  to  demand  it,  he  developed  a 
chapter  of  this  unpublished  work  into  his  first  book  of 
world-wide  fame:  the  Mare  Liberum.      It  was  a  calm, 


60  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

powerful  argument  against  one  of  the  most  monstrously 
absurd  claims  ever  put  forth :  a  claim  which  at  that  time 
clouded  the  title  of  humanity  to  our  planet.  This  was 
nothing  less  than  the  pretense  of  dominion  over  the  high 
seas  insisted  upon  by  various  nations, — a  claim  which 
had  in  days  gone  by  been  of  some  use  against  piracy, 
but  which  had  finally  become  fruitful  in  wrong.  The 
government  which  he  nominally  had  in  view  was  Portu- 
gal, but  there  doubtless  lay  deep  in  his  thought  also  the 
claim  of  England.  Her  main  contention  was  that  the 
narrow  seas — all  the  seas  lying  about  Great  Britain, 
even  up  to  the  shores  of  Norway,  of  Holland,  and  of 
France — were  her  own;  that  she  was  alone  entitled  to 
fish  in  them  or  freely  navigate  them ;  that  other  nations 
could  do  so  only  by  her  permission;  that  her  ships  in 
these  waters  were  entitled  to  lord  it  over  all  other  ships ; 
that,  as  the  mistress  of  these  seas,  her  flag  was  to  be  sa- 
luted by  the  vessels  of  all  other  powers;  and,  beside  all 
this,  she  made  a  vague  claim  to  the  Bay  of  Biscay  and 
to  the  ocean  north  of  Scotland. 

There  was  strong  warrant  for  pretensions  of  this  sort. 
As  far  back  as  1493,  Pope  Alexander  VI  had  settled  dis- 
putes between  Spain  and  Portugal  arising  out  of  their 
rivalry  in  the  Orient  and  the  Occident  by  drawing  a 
line  from  pole  to  pole  one  hundred  leagues  west  of  the 
Azores,  giving  all  west  of  it  to  the  Spanish,  all  east  of  it 
to  the  Portuguese.  Both  these  nations  attempted  more 
or  less  persistently  to  exercise  the  sway  thus  given  over 
the  oceans  as  well  as  over  the  continent.  The  Portuguese 
forbade  under  heavy  penalties  any  person,  whether  native 
or  alien,  to  pass  through  the  waters  off  the  African  and 
Brazilian  coasts  without  special  permission;  the  Spanish 
were  hardly  less  severe  toward  those  who  without  leave 
approached  their  dependencies.  But,  though  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  earth's  rotundity  renewed  the  old  difficulty, 
and  Spain  and  Portugal  discovered  that  the  Papal  deci- 


GROTIUS  61 

sion  was  futile,  since  all  their  new  dominions  could  be 
approached  both  from  the  east  and  the  west,  both  nations 
continued  to  maintain,  as  best  they  could,  their 
sovereignty  over  the  vast  oceans. 

Other  nations  followed  these  examples.  France  as- 
serted proprietary  rights  in  the  seas  off  her  coasts. 
Denmark  claimed  the  ocean  between  Norway  and  Iceland, 
and,  with  Sweden,  she  insisted  on  the  ownership  of  the 
Baltic.1  Venice,  upon  her  mudbanks  at  the  northwestern 
comer  of  the  Adriatic,  insisted  upon  a  similar  control 
over  that  open  sea — the  annual  marriage  of  the  Doge 
with  the  Adriatic  being  the  symbol  of  this  dominion. 
Genoa  and  Pisa  put  in  similar  claims  on  the  west  side  of 
Italy.  Against  all  these  assertions  Grotius  published  to 
the  world  a  demonstration  that  no  such  rights  could  exist. 

His  whole  argument  was  mainly  a  development  of  two 
postulates.  The  first  of  these  was  that  the  right  of 
nations  to  communicate  with  one  another  had  been  uni- 
versally recognized ;  that  it  was  based  on  a  fundamental 
law  of  humanity ;  that,  the  liberty  of  the  sea  being  neces- 
sary to  enable  nations  to  communicate  with  one  another, 
it  could  not  be  taken  away  by  any  power  whatever.  The 
second  was  that  every  attempt  to  make  an  ocean  high- 
way a  monopoly  of  any  single  nation  is  forbidden  by  the 
immensity  of  the  sea,  its  lack  of  stability,  its  want  of  fixed 
limits.  This  argument  in  places  seemed  thin.  The  book, 
after  the  custom  of  the  time,  was  filled  with  an  array — far 
more  than  sufficient — of  learned  citations;  but  its  most 
significant  feature — that  which  went  to  make  it  the  herald 
of  a  new  epoch — was  that  it  took  its  stand  upon  the  in- 
alienable rights  of  mankind, — that  it  mainly  deduced 
these  rights  neither  from  revelation  nor  from  national 
enactments,  but  from  natural  law  as  ascertained  by  hu- 
man reason. 

This  book  was  nominally  leveled  at  the  pretensions  of 

i  See  Hall:     International  Law,  Part  II,  Chapter  2,  §  40. 


G2  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Spain  and  Portugal,  but  the  leading  spirits  in  England 
soon  saw  its  bearing,  and  although  Queen  Elizabeth, 
when  the  Spanish  demanded  tribute  of  Sir  Francis  Drake 
in  the  ocean  adjacent  to  their  dominions,  had  made  an 
answer  appealing  to  the  natural  rights  of  all  men  upon 
the  high  seas,  all  this  was  conveniently  forgotten,  and 
King  James  I,  the  crowned  pedant  of  Great  Britain,  im- 
mediately gave  orders  to  his  ambassador  in  Holland  to 
take  measures  against  the  young  publicist. 

These  measures  having  proved  futile,  John  Selden,  a 
great  legal  authority  in  England,  a  man  well  fitted  for 
the  task,  was  led  to  write  a  reply  to  Grotius.  For  nine 
years  he  busied  himself  in  bringing  his  authorities  to- 
gether; and  in  1618  the  book  was  ready,  but  it  was  not 
then  published.  It  was  evidently  feared  that  certain 
concessions  in  it  might  thwart  the  interests  of  England 
in  sundry  quarters,  so  that  it  did  not  see  the  light  until 
1635,  and  then  on  account  of  the  direct  necessities  of 
England  in  her  trouble  with  the  Netherlands. 

In  his  Mare  Clausum  Selden  began,  as  was  then  usual, 
with  the  Bible.  In  order  to  refute  Grotius'  idea  that  the 
ocean  cannot  be  made  the  j)roperty  of  any  one  nation  he 
cites  the  twenty-eighth  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis, which  declares  that  God  said  to  x\dam,  "Have  do- 
minion over  the  fish  of  the  sea."  "Now,"  continues 
Selden,  "the  fish  are  the  living  revenue, — the  usufruct  of 
the  sea.  If  these  be  given,  the  property  itself  may  be 
considered  as  given.  Again  God  said  to  Noah  and  his 
descendants,  'Your  fear  shall  be  upon  the  fish  of  the  sea' 
(Genesis  ix.  2)."  Selden  in  like  manner  laid  stress  upon 
the  declaration  of  the  Almighty  to  the  Israelites,  "Thy 
borders  are  in  the  midst  of  the  sea,"  and  he  argued  that 
of  course  dominion  was  given  them  within  these  borders, 
and  therefore  that  this  dominion  extended  over  the  ocean. 
He  even  pressed  into  his  service  the  poetry  of  Isaiah, 
who,  as  he  says,  called  Tyre  "the  might  of  the  seas,"  and 


GROTIUS  63 

Selden  argues  that  " might,"  in  this  case,  implies  pos- 
session. He  declares  that  the  Eed  Sea  is  called  Edom, 
which  means  red,  simply  because  it  belonged  to  the  de- 
scendants of  Esau. 

With  the  same  pedantic  fullness  Selden  ransacked  the 
Talmud,  the  writers  of  classical  antiquity,  the  records  of 
mythology,  theology,  and  philology.  Neptune,  god  of  the 
seas,  he  insists,  is  only  a  king  who  really  existed  and  had 
the  right  to  rule  the  sea;  stress  is  laid  on  the  binding  of 
the  Hellespont  by  Xerxes ;  and  following  these  examples 
are  a  multitude  of  others  from  modern  history  equally 
cogent. 

Having  thus  gone  through  history,  sacred  and  profane, 
to  show  that  divine  and  human  authority  are  on  the  side 
of  political  sovereignty  over  the  seas,  he  turns  to  logic, 
and  produces  a  series  of  arguments  still  more  extraor- 
dinary. He  argues  that  if  nations  can  own  land  they  can 
own  water;  that  if  they  can  own  a  little  water  they 
can  own  much;  that  it  is  as  conformable  to  reason  for  a 
nation  to  control  an  ocean  as  a  river.  All  this  was  en- 
forced with  whole  regiments  of  categories  and  syllogisms. 

Such  was  the  work  of  a  dictator  of  English  learning, 
a  man  of  great  powers  of  thought,  of  real  independence, 
of  true  nobility  of  character.  His  only  defect  was  the 
pedantry  which  was  the  bane  of  his  time  and  from  which 
Grotius,  though  not  wholly  free,  did  so  much  to  emanci- 
pate the  world. 

The  book  of  Selden  was  hailed  in  England  as  the  great 
work  of  the  age ;  its  doctrines  determined  English  theory 
and  practice  as  long  as  England  thought  it  wise  to  apply 
them.  The  world  was  made  to  feel  them  far  into  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  treaty  attempted  by  Mr.  King, 
the  American  Minister  to  London  in  1803,  failed  because 
England  would  not  give  up  the  right  to  impress  seamen 
from  foreign  ships  upon  the  high  seas;  and  about  the 
same  period  she  applied  her  doctrine  regarding  the  con- 


64  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

trol  of  the  narrow  seas  to  the  control  of  the  broad  seas, 
up  to  the  very  shores  of  America.  Even  within  the  shal- 
low waters  of  Long  Island  Sound  she  seized  an  American 
vessel,  attempted  to  take  therefrom  the  French  Minister 
to  the  American  Government,  and,  having  failed  to  take 
him,  seized  his  papers.  Still  later,  an  English  man-of- 
war,  in  time  of  profound  peace,  attacked  an  American 
frigate  almost  within  sight  of  the  American  coast,  took 
from  her  four  seamen,  hanged  one  of  them  as  a  deserter, 
and  forced  the  other  three  into  the  British  service. 

But  the  doctrines  of  Grotius  made  their  way.  Spain, 
Portugal,  Sweden,  Denmark,  Venice,  Genoa,  Pisa,  and, 
last  of  all,  Great  Britain,  were  forced  to  yield  by  the 
combined  opinion  of  the  whole  world.1 

The  Mare  Liberum  was  followed  by  works  from  Gro- 
tius' pen  in  many  fields,  among  the  most  important  being 
those  upon  the  history  of  his  own  country ;  and  he  received 
the  title  of  Public  Historiographer.  About  the  same  time 
he  reached  the  first  rank  in  his  profession  and  was  made 
Attorney  General  of  the  Province  of  Holland,  Councilor 
and  Pensionary  of  Rotterdam,  with  the  right  of  sitting 
not  only  in  the  provincial  legislature  of  Holland,  but  also 
in  the  States  General  of  the  United  Provinces.  He  was 
also  sent  as  one  of  a  commission  to  England  charged  to 
watch  over  the  maritime  rights  of  his  country.  James  I, 
who  had  formerly  tried  to  crush  him,  now  flattered  him. 

On  his  return  in  1616  greater  honors  awaited  him.  He 
was  made  Grand  Pensionary  of  Holland  and  West  Fries- 

i  For  this  doctrine  of  dominion  over  the  sea,  see  Wheaton,  Eistoire  du 
Progres  du  Droit  des  Gens,  premiere  pgriode,  par.  17,  18;  Woolsey,  Intro- 
duction to  the  Study  of  International  Law,  chap,  ii;  also  Hall,  Interna- 
tional Law,  pp.  146,  et  seq.  For  curious  applications  of  the  old  doctrine 
and  reasons  for  them,  see  Walker,  Science  of  International  Law,  chap. 
v.  As  to  the  Chesapeake  outrage,  see  H.  Adams,  History  of  the  United 
States,  vol.  ii,  chap,  i;  also  Schouler's  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  ii, 
pp.  1G3,  et  seq. 


GROTIUS  65 

land.  But  this  culmination  of  civic  honors  in  his  own 
country  proved  to  be  a  beginning  of  calamity. 

Nothing  is  more  wretched  in  the  history  of  Europe  in 
the  period  which  followed  the  Eeformation  than  the 
sectarian  quarrels  which  cursed  every  country.  No 
theological  question  seemed  too  slight  a  cause  for  bitter 
hatred  and  even  for  civil  war.  Germany,  England, 
France,  were  convulsed  with  squabbles  between  various 
sects  and  factions,  about  questions  really  contemptible. 
In  each  of  these  countries  Protestants  were  not  only  in  a 
life  and  death  struggle  with  Catholics,  but  were  seeking 
to  exterminate  one  another.  The  Netherlands  were  no 
exception  to  the  rule.  A  professor  at  the  University  of 
Leyden,  Arminius,  happening  to  take  a  different  side  on 
the  eternal  question  of  fate  and  free  will,  his  colleague 
Gomarus  became  vitriolic ;  his  disciples  caught  the  spirit 
of  their  master,  and  soon  the  Reformed  Church  in  Hol- 
land was  split  into  two  hostile  sects, — each  heaping 
syllogisms  and  epithets  on  the  other, — Arminius  preach- 
ing free  will,  Gomarus  predestination. 

The  debate  went  on  from  bad  to  worse ;  it  could  hardly 
be  pretended  that  salvation  was  dependent  upon  holding 
the  right  metaphysical  theory  upon  this  question,  and 
Arminius  had  the  rashness  to  urge  toleration;  but  his 
foes  found  this  idea  yet  deadlier.  Gomarus  declared  that 
Arminius  was  a  supporter  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
and  that  his  doctrine  led  to  skepticism  and  infidelity.  It 
was  difficult  for  reasoning  men  to  see  how  the  same  man 
could  be  a  Roman  Catholic  and  an  infidel,  but  the  vast 
majority  did  not  reason, — they  only  believed.  Heavy 
words  were  hurled:  "supralapsarian,"  "infralapsarian" 
and  the  like ;  and  these  crushed  out  the  common  sense  of 
the  populace.     Gomarus  won  the  victory. 

The  majority  of  the  pulpits  reiterated  the  charges  or 
flung  back  the  epithets — until  finally  the  controversy  be- 


66  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

came  a  disease,  a  disease  which  speedily  took  an  acute 
form,  breaking  out  here  and  there  into  mob  murders.  It 
seemed  to  warrant  fully  the  declaration  of  Bishop  Butler 
as  to  a  "possible  insanity  of  states." 

In  this  condition  of  things,  the  Arminians,  led  by  Uy- 
tenbogaert,  a  theologian  at  The  Hague,  drew  up  in  1610 
a  protest  stating  fully  their  principles.  It  was  known  as 
the  "Remonstrance,"  and  from  this  the  Arminians  re- 
ceived their  party  name  of  Remonstrants.  Upon  this  the 
followers  of  Gomarus,  devoted  to  the  doctrine  of  pre- 
destination, drew  up  a  vigorous  rejoinder,  and  so  ob- 
tained their  party  name  of  Contra-Remonstrants.  Such 
mouth-filling  party  names  increased  mob  violence  rap- 
idly. The  States  General,  mainly  a  body  of  educated, 
thoughtful  men,  seeing  the  necessity  of  calming  the  coun- 
try, now  issued  an  Edict  of  Pacification  enjoining  toler- 
ance and  forbearance,  and  largely  permeated  by  the  just 
and  kindly  ideas  of  Grotius. 

The  Edict  of  Pacification  was  supported  by  one  of  the 
most  eloquent  appeals  ever  composed, — it  came  not  only 
from  Grotius'  head,  but  from  his  heart.  But  all  this  was 
outclamored  by  the  Gomarist  clergy.  They  cited  from 
Scripture  the  words,  "Ye  must  obey  God  rather  than 
man,"  by  which  they  simply  meant,  "Ye  are  to  accept 
our  theory  as  God's  command."  This  carried  the  great 
majority  of  the  population. 

With  this  religious  question  was  complicated  a  political 
struggle.  The  Stadtholder  and  Captain-General  of  the 
United  Provinces  was  Prince  Maurice  of  Orange, — the 
second  son  of  the  murdered  William  the  Silent.  He  had 
great  qualities,  military  and  administrative,  but  he  had 
also  an  evident  purpose  to  make  himself  virtually  a  mon- 
arch. We  need  not  suppose  him  merely  selfish  in  this 
matter;  there  was  in  him  a  mixture  of  motives.  He 
doubtless  knew  that  what  was  needed  to  enable  the  Neth- 
erlands to  hold  their  own  against  Spain,  their  religious 


GROTIUS  67 

foe,  France,  their  political  foe,  and  England,  their  com- 
mercial foe,  was  a  strong,  concentrated  government,  and 
of  this  he  was  the  natural  head.  He  had  encountered 
much  opposition  and  at  the  very  time  when  the  action  of 
all  the  provinces  under  his  leadership  was  the  first  thing 
needful. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  small  body  of  enlightened  but 
patriotic  men  of  great  influence  loved  republican  institu- 
tions and  believed  in  them,  feared  the  monarchical  trend, 
dreaded  a  dictatorship,  and  struggled  against  every  effort 
of  the  prince  which  tended  toward  it.  In  this  they  had 
some  success,  and  in  1609,  fearing  that  the  continuance 
of  war  and  the  increasing  dependence  of  the  Provinces 
upon  Maurice  would  result  in  his  dictatorship,  they 
brought  about  with  Spain  the  famous  Truce  of  Twelve 
Years.  This  led  to  bitter  hatred  between  Maurice,  the 
Stadtholder,  on  one  side,  and  the  leaders  of  republican 
tendency  on  the  other.  Foremost  among  these  latter  was 
John  of  Barneveld,  a  statesman  renowned  throughout 
Europe,  his  whole  life  full  of  high  service  to  his  country, 
his  religious  views  tolerant, — and  closely  attached  to  him 
was  Grotius. 

In  this  wretched  struggle  between  Calvinism  and 
Arminianism  Maurice  saw  his  opportunity.  Had  he 
been  a  greater  genius  or  of  a  nobler  nature,  he  might 
have  called  Grotius  to  his  aid  and  fused  both  these  ele- 
ments into  one  strong  national  force.  Such  a  fusion  was 
made  most  happily  when  in  England  the  Church  was 
united  by  combining  "a  Catholic  ritual,  Calvinistic  arti- 
cles, and  an  Arminian  clergy,"  and  at  a  much  later  period 
a  similar  happy  compromise  was  made  when  Frederick 
"William  III  of  Prussia  stood  by  the  more  tolerant  think- 
ers and  brought  together  Calvinists  and  Lutherans 
into  a  single  body,  on  whose  banner  was  inscribed  the 
shibboleth  ' '  Evangelical. ' '  But  Maurice  did  not  take  so 
large  a  view.    He  saw  that  the  Gomarists  had  the  popu- 


68  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

lace  on  their  side.  He  cared  nothing  for  their  doctrines 
as  such;  there  is  evidence  that  he  did  not  even  under- 
stand them;  but  they  were  the  predominant  force,  and 
he  took  pains  to  attend  their  churches,  tied  his  cause  to 
theirs,  became  the  firm  ally  of  fanatical  peasants  and 
their  clerical  managers  against  the  Edict  of  Pacification. 
Thus  was  he  able  to  wield  an  overwhelming  power  against 
Barneveld,  Grotius,  and  their  compeers.1 

The  course  of  Maurice  was  simple.  By  virtue  of  his 
authority  as  Stadtholder  he  had  merely  to  forbid  obe- 
dience to  the  orders  of  Barneveld,  Grotius,  and  others  in 
their  respective  provinces,  and  when  these  men  attempted 
to  enforce  their  authority  it  was  easy  to  raise  the  fanat- 
ical Calvinists  in  revolt. 

The  efforts  of  Grotius  for  peace  now  became  heroic. 
At  the  head  of  a  deputation  of  the  States  of  Holland  he 
publicly  addressed  the  authorities  of  Amsterdam  in  favor 
of  toleration.  He  showed  that  the  highest  authorities 
agreed  that  either  of  the  two  theological  opinions  might 
be  held  without  danger  of  perdition;  that  the  earlier 
reformers  had  tolerated  both  opinions.  He  besought  his 
countrymen  most  earnestly  and  eloquently,  in  view  of 
the  political  danger  to  the  country  and  of  the  religious 
danger  to  Protestantism,  to  allow  toleration  and  peace. 
All  in  vain.  On  the  great  mass  of  his  countrymen  the 
modern  idea  of  toleration  had  not  even  dawned.  He  and 
his  associates  were  dismissed  with  contempt,  and  his 
address  was  suppressed  by  force. 

Weary  nigh  unto  death,  he  was  besought  by  his  family 
and  friends  to  give  up  the  struggle.  But  he  would  not. 
He  would  make  another  exertion,  and  he  drew  up  a  new 
formula  of  peace  to  be  signed  by  both  parties.  It  con- 
tained nothing  contrary  to  Calvinism;  it  proposed  to 
leave  to  a  council  the  matters  at  issue,  and  in  the  mean- 

i  Motley  gives  a  curious  story  illustrating  the  ignorance  of  Maurice 
regarding  the  doctrines  he  supported. 


GROTIUS  69 

time  pledged  all  to  peace.  This,  too,  was  in  vain.  The 
fanatics  would  have  none  of  it,  and  Maurice  stood  by 
them. 

Matters  were  soon  beyond  any  peaceable  solution. 
Maurice,  with  the  Gomarists,  took  such  measures  that 
Bameveld,  Grotius,  and  their  associates  were  obliged  to 
summon  the  Provinces  to  resist.  But  resistance  was 
futile.  Maurice  was  a  successful  soldier  with  a  great 
name,  and  behind  him  were  strong  currents  of  patriotism 
and  an  overwhelming  tide  of  fanaticism.  In  August, 
1618,  he  was  able  to  send  Barneveld  and  Grotius  to 
prison.  Everything  favored  Maurice:  the  death  of  his 
elder  brother  during  these  events  gave  him  the  crowning 
honor,  and  he  became  the  head  of  his  family, — Prince  of 
Orange. 

And  now  was  set  in  motion  a  prodigious  piece  of 
machinery, — the  Synod  of  Dort.  It  embraced  the  leading 
theologians  of  Holland,  with  delegates  from  various  parts 
of  Protestant  Europe.  Their  weary  discussions  dragged 
along  through  the  entire  following  winter.  The  result 
was  a  foregone  conclusion.  As  in  nearly  all  the  greater 
councils  of  the  Church,  Catholic  or  Protestant,  its  pro- 
ceedings were  determined  by  intimidation  and  intrigue 
rather  than  by  discussion.  Episcopius  and  the  Armin- 
ians  at  the  Synod  of  Dort  had  as  little  chance  as  the 
opponents  of  Athanasius  at  the  Council  of  Nice;  or  as 
the  Bishop  of  Braga  at  the  Council  of  Trent ;  or  as  Arch- 
bishop Ivenrick  and  Bishop  Strossmayer  at  the  Council 
of  the  Vatican.  They  were  simply  out-intrigued,  out- 
clamored,  and  voted  down.  The  whole  decision  was  in 
accordance  with  the  direction  of  Maurice  and  the  Goma- 
rists. It  was  now  declared  that  the  Bemonstrants  must 
submit  to  the  Synod;  that  to  oppose  the  Synod  was  to 
rebel  against  the  Holy  Spirit;  that  if  they  persisted  in 
disobedience  they  would  incur  not  only  the  censures  of 
the  Church,  but  punishment  from  the  State.    Against 


70  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

this  the  Arrninians  tried  to  make  a  stand,  and  sol- 
emnly appealed  to  their  brethren;  but  at  last,  in  April, 
1619,  the  Synod  declared  them  guilty  of  pestilent  errors 
and  corrupters  of  the  true  faith,  their  doctrines  damnable, 
and  deprived  Episcopius,  with  his  associates,  of  their 
positions.  This  being  accomplished,  Barneveld  and 
Grotius  were  dealt  with.  The  court  had  been  assembled 
in  February.  It  was  composed  largely  of  the  enemies  of 
the  accused ;  the  proceedings  lingered  until  the  Synod  of 
Dort  had  made  its  main  decision  and  denunciation. 
Barneveld  was  sentenced  to  death  on  the  12th  of  May, 
1619,  and  was  executed  on  the  day  following,  bearing 
himself  nobly  on  the  scaffold,  and  neither  asking,  nor 
allowing  any  of  his  family  or  friends  to  ask,  pardon  from 
Maurice. 

A  few  days  later  Grotius  was  sentenced  to  imprison- 
ment for  life,  and  transferred  to  the  castle  of  Loevestein. 
Vigorous  measures  ensued  against  lesser  offenders ;  such 
Arminian  ministers  as  could  be  seized  were  torn  from 
their  pulpits,  stripped  of  their  property,  banished,  or  im- 
prisoned. From  all  parts  of  the  Netherlands  they  were 
driven  to  neighboring  countries,  Catholic  and  Protestant. 
It  was  a  story  like  that  of  the  Puritans  driven  from 
England,  the  Huguenots  from  France,  the  Moriscoes  from 
Spain,  the  Protestants  from  Salzburg,  the  Finlanders 
and  Jews  from  Eussia  in  our  day ; — the  same  old  story, — 
unreason,  bigotry,  party  passion,  individual  ambition,  all 
masquerading  as  "saving  faith." 

All  this  work  having  been  set  in  motion,  on  the  29th 
of  May,  1619,  the  Synod  of  Dort  was  closed. 

The  imprisonment  of  Grotius  was  not  the  worst  that 
now  befell  him.  His  enemies  sought  to  rob  him,  not  only 
of  his  liberty,  but  of  his  honor.  His  request  to  present 
his  defense  to  Prince  Maurice,  as  he  truly  says,  "was 
afterward  misinterpreted  as   if  I  had  had  wonderful 


GROTIUS  71 

things  to  reveal."  The  fact  that  he  thought  of  offer- 
ing his  services  as  a  councilor  to  Prince  Maurice  will 
not  prejudice  against  him  any  American  who  remembers 
how  statesmen  in  our  own  country  like  Daniel  Webster 
and  William  Henry  Seward  sought  most  patriotically  to 
redeem  administrations  which  they  may  have  disliked  for 
the  sake  of  principles  which  they  held  dear.  Not  only 
was  Grotius  refused,  during  the  weary  months  of  trial, 
any  opportunity  to  draw  up  a  defense  in  writing,  but 
when  it  was  granted  he  was  allowed  only  a  single  sheet 
of  paper  and  four  hours  of  time.  After  the  manner  of 
that  period  in  treason  trials,  he  was  not  permitted  to 
summon  counsel  or  to  consult  documents ;  worst  of  all,  the 
utterances  of  Barneveld  were  evidently  presented  to  him 
in  a  false  light,  so  that,  in  repelling  charges  against  him- 
self, Grotius  was  made  to  appear  as  if  attacking  his 
friend.  Thus  were  set  in  motion  the  calumnies  which 
have  been  reechoed  from  that  day  to  this,  and  to  which 
even  our  eminent  American  historian  of  the  Dutch  Ee- 
public  has  given  an  attention  which  they  do  not  deserve. 
Looking  over  the  whole  matter  dispassionately,  the  con- 
clusion seems  irresistible  that  Grotius,  in  prison,  was 
deceived,  and  his  utterances  misinterpreted.  Nothing 
else  in  his  life  warrants  the  belief  that  he  could  have 
been  for  a  moment  disloyal  to  Barneveld.  That  Groen 
van  Prinsterer  repeats  these  charges  in  our  day  adds 
nothing  to  their  strength.  No  one  can  read  the  attack 
made  by  this  modern  enemy  of  Arminianism  and  of  Gro- 
tius without  seeing  at  once  that  its  charges  are  vitiated 
by  its  sectarian  bitterness.  Grotius '  attitude  in  those  most 
trying  hours  was  not  that  of  a  determined,  uncompromis- 
ing ruler  of  men,  like  Barneveld,  but  that  of  a  scholarly 
statesman,  honest  and  straightforward,  seeking  to  serve 
his  country.  He  may  have  been  for  a  moment  deceived 
by  the  intriguers  who  sought  to  separate  him  from  his 


72  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

friend,  but  his  conduct,  taken  as  a  whole,  was  that  of  a 
patriot  and  a  true  man.1 

Shut  up  in  the  castle  of  Loevestein,  during  nearly  two 
years  Grotius  found  consolation  in  his  studies.  At  the 
end  of  that  time  he  was  rescued  by  a  stratagem.  His 
wife,  who  had  shown  a  most  touching  devotion  to  him 
from  first  to  last,  who  had  shared  his  captivity,  and  done 
all  in  her  power  to  make  it  tolerable,  made  friends  with 
the  wife  of  the  jailer  and  others  who  might  be  of  use, 
smuggled  her  husband  into  a  case  supposed  to  contain 
borrowed  books,  and  thus  had  him  conveyed  from  the 
fortress.  After  several  hairbreadth  escapes  the  box  was 
carried  to  the  house  of  a  friend,  and  Grotius,  escaping 
from  it,  fled  in  the  disguise  of  a  brick-layer  into  France. 
One  thing  in  his  departure  did  him  special  honor.  This 
was  his  letter  to  the  authorities  of  the  Netherlands  de- 
claring that  no  person  had  been  bribed  to  aid  him,  that 
he  himself  was  not  guilty  of  any  crime  against  his  coun- 
try, and  that  nothing  that  had  taken  place  had  diminished 
his  love  for  it. 

Arriving  in  France,  he  was  welcomed  on  all  sides  as  a 
great  European  scholar.  Louis  XIII  settled  upon  him  a 
pension,  which,  unfortunately,  was  small  and  rarely  paid ; 
luckily  friends  were  found  to  give  him  shelter,  and  he 
continued  his  devotion  to  his  studies.  Among  other  trea- 
tises which  attracted  general  notice  he  wrote  a  defense 
of  his  course, — straightforward,  with  no  bitterness ;  vari- 
ous works  calculated  to  diminish  intolerance ;  and,  in  162i\ 
at  the  Chateau  of  Balagny,  he  began  giving  final  shape  to 
the  great  work  of  his  life,  the  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads, 
and  for  three  years  it  occupied  his  best  thought. 

Few  more  inspiring  things  have  been  seen  in  human 

i  As  regards  the  charge  that  Grotius  was  disloyal  to  Barneveld,  see 
Motley,  John  of  Barneveld,  vol.  ii,  pp.  39G,  et  seq.;  and  for  echoes  of  the 
old  attacks,  resentful  and  bitter,  see  Groen  van  Prinsterer,  Maurice  et 
Barnevelt,  Utrecht,  1876,  pp.  ccv,  et  seq. 


GROTIUS  73 

history.  He  had  apparently  every  reason  for  yielding  to 
pessimism,  for  hating  his  country,  and  for  despising  his 
race.  He  might  have  given  his  life  to  satirizing  his  ene- 
mies and  to  scolding  at  human  folly:  he  did  nothing  of 
the  sort,  but  worked  on,  day  and  night,  to  bestow  upon 
mankind  one  of  the  most  precious  blessings  it  has  ever 
received. 

The  great  work  of  Grotius  was  published  in  1625.  Its 
reception  must  have  disappointed  him ;  for,  while  thought- 
ful and  earnest  men  in  various  parts  of  Europe  showed 
their  appreciation  of  it  at  once,  the  mass  of  men  were 
indifferent,  and  their  religious  leaders,  as  a  rule,  hostile. 
The  condemnation  of  it  at  Eome,  the  fact  that  it  was 
placed  upon  the  Index  of  works  which  Catholics  were  for- 
bidden to  read,  and  that  this  Index  bore  the  sanction  of 
a  Papal  bull,  was  at  first  a  great  barrier.  So,  too,  the 
distrust  felt  by  the  leaders  of  the  Protestant  Church 
checked  its  progress.  But  more  and  more  it  made  its 
way.  In  every  nation  were  jurists  and  statesmen  who, 
while  they  acquiesced  nominally  in  the  teachings  of  the 
church  in  which  they  had  happened  to  be  born,  did  some 
thinking  on  their  own  account ;  and  in  the  minds  of  such 
the  germs  of  the  better  system  planted  by  Grotius  took 
root.  Many,  too,  whose  belief  was  in  accordance  with  the 
dominant  ecclesiastical  ideas,  had  hearts  better  than  their 
heads,  and  on  those  the  eloquence  of  Grotius  wrought 
with  power.  In  various  universities,  his  doctrines  began 
to  be  commented  upon  and  taught,  and  notably  at  Heidel- 
berg, where  Puf endorf  became  Grotius '  first  great  apos- 
tle. His  ideas  found  their  way  into  current  discussion, 
into  systems  of  law,  into  treaties;  and,  as  generations 
rolled  by,  the  world  began  to  find  itself,  it  hardly  knew 
how,  less  and  less  cruel,  until  men  looked  back  upon  war 
as  practiced  in  his  time  as  upon  a  hideous  dream, — doubt- 
less much  as  men  in  future  generations  will  look  back 
upon  the  wars  of  our  time. 


74  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Most  notable  among  those  who  were  immediately  influ- 
enced by  Grotius'  work  were  his  two  foremost  contem- 
poraries, one  a  Protestant  and  the  other  a  Catholic. 

First  of  these  was  Gustavus  Adolphus.  He  was  by  far 
the  greatest  and  bravest  leader  of  his  time.  Grotius' 
work  became  his  favorite  study;  he  kept  it  by  his  bed- 
side ;  it  was  found  in  his  tent  after  his  death  on  the  field 
of  Liitzen.  Despite  the  atrocities  of  the  opposing  com- 
manders, he  constantly  stood  for  mercy  and  began  on  a 
large  scale  the  better  conduct  of  modern  war:  his  most 
impassioned  speeches  were  made  to  his  soldiers  in  dis- 
suading them  from  cruelty  or  in  rebuking  them  for  it. 

And  there  was  another  great  example.  Three  years 
after  the  appearance  of  Grotius'  book,  Cardinal  Rich- 
elieu, who  then  governed  France  in  the  name  of  Louis 
XIII,  took  La  Rochelle.  It  was  the  stronghold  of  French 
Protestantism ;  it  had  resisted  as  few  fortified  places  have 
ever  resisted;  the  Protestants  gathered  there  had  been 
guilty  of  high  treason  in  its  worst  degrees:  they  had 
called  in  England  to  their  aid,  they  had  rebelled  so  madly 
that  they  were  outside  the  pale  of  mercy,  the  greater  part 
of  the  city  population  had  been  destroyed,  and  among 
those  who  were  left  there  had  been  recourse  to  canni- 
balism. 

The  whole  civilized  world  expected  to  see  a  frightful 
example  made ;  and  in  view  of  the  ferocious  instructions 
which  at  the  beginning  of  the  wars  thus  ended  had  been 
given  by  Pius  V  and  other  pontiffs,  in  view  of  the  savage 
practice  general  throughout  Europe,  and  above  all  that  of 
Philip  II  and  Alva  in  the  Netherlands  and  of  Tilly  in 
Germany,  there  was  every  reason  to  expect  a  massacre 
of  the  inhabitants  with  the  plunder  and  destruction  of  the 
city.  All  Europe  held  its  breath  in  anticipation  of  cruel- 
ties befitting  the  long  and  bitter  rebellion  of  the  Hugue- 
nots against  their  sovereigns  in  Church  and  State. 

Richelieu  was  a  devoted  believer  in  the  dogmas  and 


GROTIUS  75 

authority  of  the  Church — he  had  begun  his  literary  life 
by  polemics  against  Protestantism,  and  his  first  act  after 
his  great  victory  as  a  general,  was,  as  a  bishop,  to  cele- 
brate a  high  mass  of  thanksgiving.  He  had  received  his 
education  in  an  atmosphere  of  cruel  intolerance  of  which 
we  can  now  hardly  dream.  It  was  the  period  when  the 
teachings  of  the  sainted  Pope  Pius  V  were  in  all  their 
vigor, — the  teachings  of  the  pontiff  who  wrote  letters  to 
Catherine  de  Medici,  to  Charles  IX,  to  the  Duke  of  An- 
jou,  and  to  other  leaders  in  France,  commanding  them 
not  merely  to  persecute,  but  to  massacre,  forbidding  them 
to  spare  a  single  Huguenot  prisoner,  citing  to  King 
Charles  the  example  of  King  Saul,  and  holding  up  to  the 
most  Christian  king,  as  the  punishment  he  would  merit 
and  receive  from  the  Almighty  if  he  showed  mercy  to  the 
Huguenots,  the  punishment  received  by  that  Jewish  king 
for  showing  mercy  to  the  enemies  of  Israel.  Still  dom- 
inant were  the  teachings  of  Gregory  XIII,  who  had  cele- 
brated the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  with  thanksgiv- 
ing at  Rome,  commemorated  it  in  magnificent  pictures  at 
the  Vatican,  and  struck  a  medal  in  its  honor  for  circula- 
tion throughout  Europe.  Not  only  did  the  early  educa- 
tion and  environment  of  Richelieu  seem  to  presage  a 
fearful  treatment  of  La  Rochelle,  but  his  own  conduct  in 
other  matters  seemed  to  insure  it.  As  a  rule,  toward 
those  guilty  of  treason  he  was  ever  merciless,  and  for 
crimes  against  public  order  he  sent  members  of  the  high- 
est families  in  France  to  the  scaffold.1 

But,  to  the  amazement  of  the  world  and  to  the  intense 
disgust  of  the  fanatics  who  thirsted  for  vengeance,  Rich- 
elieu now  did  none  of  the  terrible  things  expected  of  him. 

i  For  the  full  text  of  the  letters  of  St.  Pius  V,  commanding  massacre 
and  forbidding  mercy,  see  De  Potter,  Lettres  de  St.  Pie  V,  Paris,  1830. 
Those  especially  citing  the  punishment  of  King  Saul  for  his  mercy  to  the 
Amalekites  were  addressed  to  King  Charles  and  Catherine  de  Medici  (nos. 
xii,  xiii ) .  For  copious  citations,  see  Laurent,  Hist,  du  Droit  des  Gens, 
tome  x. 


76  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

He  indeed  swept  away  a  mass  of  dangerous  party  priv- 
ileges which  the  Calvinistic  sect  had  enjoyed,  but  even  to 
the  most  bitter  of  the  Huguenots  he  was  merciful.  He 
allowed  no  massacre,  no  destruction,  no  plunder.  After 
he  had  summoned  into  his  presence  Guiton,  the  Huguenot 
mayor  of  the  city,  who  had  stood  out  against  him  so  long 
and  so  desperately,  he  treated  him  with  respect  and  in- 
flicted upon  him  merely  a  short  banishment.  The  Hugue- 
nots, though  broken  as  a  party,  were  not  even  excluded 
from  civil  office  or  debarred  from  the  exercise  of  their 
religion ;  everywhere  was  lenity.  The  fanatics  of  his  own 
church  bestowed  on  him  such  names  as  "Cardinal  of 
Satan,"  "Pope  of  the  Atheists." 

How  was  it  that  in  this  case  Eichelieu  showed  a  tolera- 
tion and  mercy  so  at  variance  with  everything  in  his  pre- 
vious career?  All  the  circumstances  of  the  case  enforce 
the  conviction  that,  during  the  three  years  between  the 
publication  of  Grotius'  book  and  the  taking  of  La  Ro- 
chelle,  the  cardinal  had  been  influenced  by  it.  It  had 
arrested  the  attention  of  thinking  men  in  all  parts  of 
Europe,  and  must  have  been  known  to  the  foremost 
statesman  of  France,  living  in  the  very  city  where  it  was 
published.  Throughout  his  whole  career,  Eichelieu 
showed  an  especial  respect  for  scholars  and  scholarly 
work,  as  his  monument  in  the  Sorbonne  bears  witness  to 
this  day.  At  a  later  period,  even  when  there  was  much 
official  friction  between  the  two  statesmen,  Richelieu  freed 
Grotius'  writings  from  the  French  censorship,  and  de- 
clared him  one  of  the  three  great  scholars  of  his  time. 
Even  if  the  cardinal  knew  the  book  merely  as  Nicholas  II 
of  Russia  knew  the  epoch-making  work  of  Jean  de  Bloch 
against  war, — the  book  which  in  our  own  days  led  that 
czar  to  call  the  Peace  Conferences  of  The  Hague, — that 
is,  merely  by  report,  by  quotations,  by  discussions,  he 
could  not  fail  to  have  grasped  its  main  purport.     There 


GROTIUS  77 

seems,  indeed,  no  other  way  to  account  for  the  fact  that 
from  one  of  the  most  devoted  of  ecclesiastics  and  most 
merciless  of  statesmen  there  came,  during  this  vast  temp- 
tation to  cruelty,  so  benign  a  treatment  of  subjugated 
heretics  and  rebels. 

But  a  striking  proof  that  Grotius  had  brought  in  a  new- 
epoch  was  shown  three  years  after  his  death.  In  1648 
plenipotentiaries  from  the  great  states  of  Europe  signed 
at  Munster  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia,  which  closed  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  in  Germany,  the  Eighty  Years'  War 
in  the  Netherlands,  and  a  long  era  of  savagery  in  all 
parts  of  the  globe.  This  instrument  embodied  principles 
which  Grotius  had  really  been  the  first  to  bring  into  the 
thought  of  the  world.  At  its  base  was  his  conception  of 
the  essential  independence  and  equality  of  all  sovereign 
states, — all  its  parts  were  riveted  together  by  his  concep- 
tions of  eternal  justice, — the  whole  structure  was  per- 
meated by  his  hatred  of  cruelty  and  love  of  mercy.  To 
the  signing  of  this  treaty  the  Papal  authorities  at  Rome 
had  constantly  shown  themselves  bitterly  opposed ;  all 
that  intrigue,  bribes,  and  threats  could  do,  they  had  done ; 
and,  as  the  congress  at  Munster  went  on  more  evidently 
toward  a  merciful  issue,  this  violence  at  Rome  became 
more  and  more  marked.  As  the  climax  of  the  whole, 
Pope  Innocent  X  issued  his  bull,  Zelo  Domus  Dei,  absolv- 
ing the  signatories  of  the  treaty  from  the  oaths  they  had 
taken  when  affixing  their  signatures  to  it;  and  not  only 
this,  but  virtually  commanded  them  to  break  their  oaths. 
But  a  new  time  had  come.  The  signers,  having  foreseen 
this  exercise  of  the  Papal  power  "to  bind  and  loose, " 
made  a  solemn  pledge  and  vow  not  to  avail  themselves  of 
any  such  absolution.  The  book  had  indeed  begun  its 
work. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  examine  the  teaching 
of  Grotius,  note  the  proofs  of  its  influence  on  the  two 


78  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

centuries  following,  and  mark  the  latest  exhibition  of  its 
power  in  the  International  Peace  Conferences  of  The 
Hague  in  1899  and  1907.1 

1 1.  For  a  striking  example  of  the  hatred  felt  by  bigots  toward  Riche- 
lieu's tolerance,  see  Henri  Martin,  Histoire  de  France,  tome  xi,  p.  278.  As 
to  diplomatic  friction  between  Richelieu  and  Grotius,  see  Burigny,  Vie  de 
Grotius,  Amsterdam,  1754,  tome  i,  pp.  248-258.  For  Richelieu's  order 
relieving  Grotius'  works  from  the  censorship,  ibid.,  tome  ii,  p.  110.  For 
Richelieu's  estimation  of  Grotius  as  one  of  the  three  foremost  savants  of 
his  time,  ibid.,  tome  ii,  p.  208. 

n.  For  proofs  that  Richelieu,  worldly  wise  as  was  his  policy,  was  at 
heart  a  devout  believer,  see  Hanotaux,  Histoire  du  Cardinal  de  Richelieu, 
tome  ii,  2me  partie,  chapitre  2;  Avenel,  Richelieu  et  la  Monarchic  Absolue, 
Paris,  1887,  tome  iii,  pp.  393-421;  also  Perkins,  France  under  Richelieu 
and  Mazarin,  vol.  ii,  p.  128,  note. 

in.  For  an  admirable  brief  summary  of  Grotius'  relation  to  the  Treaty 
of  Westphalia,  see  Walker,  Science  of  International  Law,  chap.  iv. 

iv.  For  Pope  Innocent  X  and  the  bull  Zelo  Domus  Dei,  see  Laurent, 
Histoire  du  Droit  des  Gens,  vol.  x,  pp.  174,  et  seq. 


II 

THE  first  characteristics  which  the  book  of  Grotius  re- 
vealed were  faith  and  foresight.  Great  as  it  was, — 
the  most  beneficent  of  all  volumes  ever  written  not  claim- 
ing divine  inspiration, — yet  more  wonderful  than  the  book 
itself  was  the  faith  of  its  author.  In  none  of  the  years 
during  which  he  meditated  it,  and  least  of  all  during  the 
years  when  it  was  written,  could  any  other  human  being 
see  in  the  anarchic  darkness  of  the  time  any  tribunal 
which  could  recognize  a  plea  for  right  reason  in  interna- 
tional affairs,  or  enforce  a  decision  upon  it.  The  great- 
ness of  Grotius  lies,  first  of  all,  in  the  fact  that  he  saw  in 
all  this  darkness  one  court  sitting  supreme  to  which  he 
might  make  appeal,  and  that  court — the  heart  and  mind 
of  universal  humanity. 

What  the  darkness  was  which  his  eye  alone  could  pierce 
was  shown  in  his  preface.  He  says:  "I  saw  many  and 
grave  causes  why  I  should  write  a  work  on  that  subject. 
I  saw  in  the  whole  Christian  world  a  license  of  fighting  at 
which  even  barbarous  nations  might  blush.  Wars  were 
begun  on  trifling  pretexts  or  none  at  all,  and  carried  on 
without  any  reverence  for  law,  Divine  or  human.  A  dec- 
laration of  war  seemed  to  let  loose  every  crime."  1 

To  understand  the  significance  of  Grotius'  work,  let  us 
glance  over  the  evolution  of  international  law  up  to  his 
time. 

The  Hebrews,  in  their  wars  with  their  neighbors,  con- 
sidered themselves  bound  by  hardly  any  of  the  rules  of 
humanity  which  in  these  days  prevail  as  axioms.  On 
sundry  neighboring  nations  they  thought  themselves  com- 

1  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  Prolegomena,  par.  28. 

79 


80  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

manded  by  the  Almighty  to  exercise  merciless  cruelties : 
"to  save  nothing  alive  that  breatheth;"  to  burn  cities; 
to  mutilate  and  murder  captives;  to  spare  neither  men, 
women,  nor  children.  Any  exceptions  to  this  barbarity 
were,  as  a  rule,  confined  to  populations  which  would  con- 
sent to  be  enslaved. 

Exhortations  to  cruelty  are  not  only  constant  in  the 
laws  of  Moses,  but  they  ring  loud  and  long  through  the 
Psalms  and  Prophecies.  Yet  here  and  there  we  see  an 
evolution  of  a  better  view :  out  of  this  mass  of  savagery 
there  were  developed  some  regard  for  treaties  and  for 
the  persons  of  ambassadors,  and  from  time  to  time  pre- 
cepts and  examples  of  mercy. 

During  the  Hellenic  period,  germs  of  humanity  had 
appeared.  Among  themselves,  the  Greek  states  observed 
truces  and  treaties,  took  pains  at  times  to  make  war  less 
barbarous,  occasionally  gave  quarter,  substituted  slavery 
or  ransom  for  the  murder  of  prisoners,  spared  public 
monuments,  respected  the  persons  of  heralds  and  ambas- 
sadors. Such,  with  exceptions  many  and  cruel,  was  their 
rule  among  themselves ;  but,  in  dealing  with  those  not  of 
Hellenic  origin,  their  rule,  in  peace  and  war,  was  outrage 
and  slaughter. 

The  Eoman  Republic,  struggling  constantly  with  tribes, 
nations,  and  races  not  bound  to  it  by  any  recognized  tie, 
acknowledged,  as  a  rule,  no  claims  of  humanity.  In  con- 
quering the  world,  it  demanded  none,  and,  as  a  rule, 
granted  none. 

Under  the  Eoman  Empire  a  better  evolution  was  seen. 
The  Roman  feeling  for  system  and  order  took  shape  in 
their  municipal  law,  and  this  was  extended  largely  and 
wisely  over  their  conquests.  Though  it  was  really  a  law 
imposed  by  conquerors  upon  conquered,  it  came  to  have 
many  characteristics  of  an  international  law  between  the 
subject  states.     Law  to  nations  began  to  look  much  like  a 


GROTIUS  81 

law  of  nations :  the  jus  gentium  came  to  be  mistaken  by 
many,  then  and  later,  for  a  jus  inter  gentes. 

In  the  confusion  which  followed  the  downfall  of  the 
Eoman  Empire,  there  was  one  survival  to  which  the  world 
seemed  likely  to  turn  at  once,  and  this  was  the  idea  of 
an  imperial  power  giving  laws  to  the  nations.  The  heir- 
ship of  this  power  was  naturally  claimed  by  the  mediaeval 
empire  in  northern  Europe,  based  upon  German  charac- 
teristics but  permeated  by  Eoman  ideas ;  and,  had  the  suc- 
cessors of  Charlemagne  proved  worthy  of  him,  there 
might  have  been  imposed  upon  Europe  a  pax  Germanica 
as  strong  and  as  durable  as  the  pax  Romana  had  been. 
But  the  German  Empire,  fallen  to  weaklings  and  broken 
into  discordant  states,  lost  more  and  more  its  power  to 
enforce  a  mediating  will  upon  Europe ;  and,  though  at  the 
Eeformation  it  still  called  itself  "Holy"  and  "Eoman" 
and  an  "Empire,"  it  had  become  merely  a  single  party 
in  a  great  struggle  of  warring  religions  and  policies. 

But  there  had  arisen  another  power,  which  soon  ap- 
peared even  more  likely  to  inherit  the  old  Eoman  mission 
of  enforcing  peace  and  law  throughout  the  world.  For 
this  mission  the  Papacy  seemed  to  fulfill  every  require- 
ment. Seated  on  the  hills  once  occupied  by  the  Caesars, 
representing  an  unquestioned  spiritual  authority,  it 
seemed,  even  more  than  the  German  Empire,  fitted  to  im- 
pose upon  Europe,  and  indeed  upon  all  mankind,  a  true 
law  of  nations,  or  at  least  to  establish  a  court  before 
which  the  nations  should  appear. 

Great  pontiffs  came,  like  the  early  Gregories  and  Leos 
and  Innocents,  who  worthily  proclaimed  this  high  mis- 
sion. The  Church  at  large,  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries,  was  clearly  ready  to  join  in  it,  and  at  various 
centres  throughout  Europe  the  spirit  of  the  blessed 
Founder  of  Christianity  asserted  itself  in  efforts  to  check 
the  mediaeval  flood  of  cruelty  in  war.    Most  striking 


82  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

among  these  efforts  was  the  "Truce  of  God,"  which  con- 
demned and  largely  prevented  war  at  various  sacred  sea- 
sons and  on  certain  days  of  the  week.  But,  unfortu- 
nately, the  central  hierarchy  began  to  show  an  alloy  of 
human  weakness  which  gradually  deprived  the  Papacy 
forever  of  this  splendid  and  beneficent  function. 

The  first  element  in  this  alloy  was  the  lust  for  an 
earthly  dominion.  There  came  the  pretended  "Donation 
of  Constantine,"  the  false  Decretals,  the  struggles  with 
sword  and  pen  to  despoil  this  petty  prince,  to  win  that 
petty  territory,  to  establish  a  petty  temporal  throne,  in 
the  shade  of  which  grew  luxuriantly  and  noxiously  nepo- 
tism and  scoundrelism. 

A  far  more  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  Papacy 
to  recognition  as  a  mediator  and  moderator  between 
states  was  its  doctrine  regarding  dealings  with  unbe- 
lievers and  misbelievers.  For  the  fundamental  doctrine 
which  permeated  theological  thought  and  ecclesiastical 
action  was  condensed  into  the  statement  that  "no  faith 
is  to  be  kept  with  heretics."  Throughout  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  afterward,  this  doctrine  steadily  undermined 
confidence  in  the  Papacy  as  an  international  umpire. 
The  burning  of  John  Huss  by  the  Emperor  Sigismund  at 
the  behest  of  ecclesiastics  in  violation  of  a  solemn  promise 
and  safe  conduct,  the  advice  to  Charles  V  to  violate  the 
safe  conduct  he  had  given  Luther,  and  various  similar 
cases  quietly  had  their  effect.  Memorable  was  the  sol- 
emn declaration,  just  after  the  Reformation,  made  by  the 
Bishop  of  Augsburg :  ' '  There  can  be  no  peace  between 
Catholics  and  heretics;  as  well  attempt  to  make  agree- 
ments between  light  and  darkness."  Significant,  too,  in 
Grotius'  own  time,  was  the  declaration  of  an  eminent  pro- 
fessor of  theology  at  Mainz,  the  seat  of  the  German 
Primate,  that  "a  peace  which  permits  men  to  be  Catholic, 
Lutheran,  or  Calvinist  is  absolutely  null,  because  it  is 
contrary  to  the  law  of  God."     Even  in  1629,  four  years 


GROTIUS  83 

after  the  appearance  of  Grotius'  work,  came  a  treatise, 
eminently  approved  by  the  older  Church  throughout  Eu- 
rope, which  taught  that  any  treaty  between  Catholics  and 
heretics  is  fundamentally  void.  Indicative  of  a  recog- 
nized fact  was  the  declaration  of  the  Jesuit  father, 
Bibadeneira:  ''If  Catholics  sometimes  make  agreements 
with  Protestants,  it  is  solely  in  order  to  gain  time  and  to 
get  forces  together  with  which  to  overwhelm  them. ' ' l 

But  that  which  most  fatally  undermined  the  Papal  posi- 
tion as  a  law-giving  and  moderating  umpire  in  Europe 
was  its  assertion,  loud  and  frequent,  of  its  power  to  break 
treaties  and  annul  oaths.  The  fundamental  doctrine  of 
the  Church  on  this  subject,  which  theologians  had  devised 
and  which  ecclesiastics  had  enforced,  was  laid  down  in 
the  decretal  which  declared  in  express  terms  that  ''an 
oath  contrary  to  the  interests  of  the  Church  is  void. ' ' 2 

What  this  meant  was  seen  when  Clement  VI  gave  to 
the  confessors  of  a  French  king  power  to  give  releases 
from  various  oaths  and  vows  which  it  might  be  found 
"inconvenient  to  keep";  when  Eugenius  IV  released 
Nicholas  Piccinino  from  his  solemn  agreement  with  Fran- 
cis Sforza;  when  Julius  II  released  Ferdinand  of  Spain 
from  the  oath  sworn  upon  his  treaty  with  Louis  XII  of 
France;  and,  above  all,  when  the  Papal  absolution,  and 
indeed  persuasion,  led  Francis  I  of  France  to  break  his 
solemn  oath  and  pledges  to  the  Treaty  of  Madrid,  and  to 
renew  the  war  which  desolated  France,  Germany,  and 
Spain.  So  fearful  had  this  evil  become  in  Grotius'  own 
land  and  time,  that  William  of  Orange  made  a  solemn 
protest  against  the  annulling  of  oaths  and  treaties  as 
"leaving  nothing  certain  in  the  world."  3 

i  See  citations  in  Laurent,  Histoire  du  Droit  des  Gens,  Paris,  1865,  vol.  x> 
p.  439. 

2  For  the  Latin  text  of  this  decretal,  see  Laurent,  as  above,  vol.  x,  p.  429, 
note. 

3  For  the  Latin  text  of  the  permission  to  absolve  from  oaths  which  were 
found  "inconvenient  to  keep,"  see  Laurent,  vol.  x,  p.  432,  note. 


84  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

War  to  extermination  thus  became  the  only  means  of 
obtaining  peace.  This  was  the  strictly  logical  basis  of 
the  decree  of  the  Holy  Inquisition,  which  Philip  II  sol- 
emnly approved,  condemning  to  death  the  entire  popula- 
tion of  the  Netherlands.  All  treaties  had  thus  become 
illusory. 

Nor  was  there  any  possibility,  after  the  Eeformation, 
of  a  Protestant  international  tribunal.  For  the  breaking 
of  oaths  was  sanctioned  also  by  the  Eeformed  Church. 
Noteworthy  was  the  case  of  the  Count  of  Nassau,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  great  Protestant  house  of  that  name.  He  had 
sworn  to  a  treaty  tolerating  the  worship  of  his  Catholic 
subjects,  but  the  Calvinist  theologians  insisted  that  he 
must  violate  his  oath  on  the  ground  that  Catholics  were 
idolaters.  It  is  something,  however,  that  his  brother, 
William  of  Orange,  and  Beza  opposed  this  decision.1 

In  another  important  respect,  Protestant  practices 
were  less  excusable  than  Catholic.  The  Roman  author- 
ities and  all  that  obeyed  them  throughout  Europe  felt 
themselves,  in  all  their  cruelties,  to  be  striving  for  the 
''salvation  of  souls."  The  Protestants  had  no  such  ex- 
cuse. They  waged  war,  not  only  against  conscientious 
Catholics,  who,  as  they  thought,  came  under  the  Old 
Testament  denunciation  for  idolatry,  but  also  against 
their  Protestant  brethren,  who  differed  from  them  on 
merely  metaphysical  points  not  involving  salvation.  The 
only  thing  to  be  said  in  mitigation  of  Protestant  intoler- 
ance is  that,  though  more  inexcusable  than  the  intolerance 
of  the  older  Church,  it  was  less  inexorable:  for  in  the 
Protestant  Church  there  was  no  dogma  of  infallibility 
which  prevented  an  open  modification  or  even  reversal  of 
any  teachings  which  the  evolution  of  humanity  had  grad- 
ually proved  false  and  noxious. 

i  For  the  case  of  John  of  Nassau,  see  Groen  van  Prinstercr,  Archives 
de  la  liaison  d'Orange,  t.  vii,  pp.  127  ff.  For  Beza's  view,  ibid.  pp.  248- 
254.     For  William  of  Orange,  ibid.  p.   133,  note. 


GROTIUS  85 

But,  despite  this  mitigation,  the  Protestants  found,  as 
they  thought,  a  sure  warrant  for  cruelties  quite  as  great 
as  any  practiced  by  Catholics.  By  all  who  broke  away 
froin  Papal  authority  in  the  sixteenth  century,  there  was 
made  an  especial  appeal  to  the  Jewish  and  Christian 
sacred  books.  These  books  were  read  as  never  before. 
From  the  Protestant  pulpit,  whether  Lutheran,  Calvinist, 
or  Anabaptist,  constant  appeals  were  made  to  them  as 
final  in  the  conduct  of  war.  On  both  sides  of  the  great 
controversy  which  had  taken  such  fearful  shape  in  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  but  especially  on  the 
Protestant  side,  the  minds  of  men  were  devoted,  not  to  pro- 
moting that  peace  which  was  breathed  upon  the  world  by 
the  New  Testament,  but  to  finding  warrant  for  war — and 
especially  the  methods  of  the  Chosen  People  in  waging 
war  against  unbelievers — in  the  Old  Testament.  Did  any 
legislator  or  professor  of  law  yield  to  feelings  of  human- 
ity, he  was  sure  to  meet  with  protests  based  upon  au- 
thority of  Holy  Scripture.  Plunder  and  pillage  were 
supported  by  reference  to  the  divinely  approved  "spoil- 
ing of  the  Egyptians"  by  the  Israelites.  The  right  to 
massacre  unresisting  enemies  was  based  upon  the  com- 
mand of  the  Almighty  to  the  Jews  in  the  twentieth  chap- 
ter of  Deuteronomy.  The  indiscriminate  slaughter  of 
whole  populations  was  justified  by  a  reference  to  the 
divine  command  to  slaughter  the  nations  round  about 
Israel.  Torture  and  mutilation  of  enemies  was  sanc- 
tioned by  the  conduct  of  Samuel  against  Agag,  of  King 
David  against  the  Philistines,  of  the  men  of  Judah  against 
Adoni-bezek.  Even  the  slaughter  of  babes  in  arms  was 
supported  by  a  passage  from  the  Psalms, — "Happy  shall 
he  be,  that  taketh  and  dasheth  thy  little  ones  against  the 
stones."  Treachery  and  assassination  were  supported 
by  a  reference  to  the  divinely  approved  Phinehas,  Ehud, 
Judith,  and  Jael;  and  murdering  the  ministers  of  unap- 


86  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

proved  religions,  by  Elijah's  slaughter  of  the  priests  of 
Baal. 

But  while  the  Germanic  Empire  and  the  Papacy  had 
proved  their  unfitness  to  mediate  between  the  nations  of 
Christendom,  and  while  the  Reformation  had  shown  itself 
utterly  unable  to  diminish  the  horrors  of  war  or  to  in- 
crease the  incentives  to  peace,  there  had  been  developed 
some  beginnings  of  an  appeal  to  right  reason. 

The  first  of  these  were  seen  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when 
plain  merchants  and  shipmasters  devised  such  maritime 
codes  as  the  Jugemens  d'Oleron,  the  Consolato  del  Mare, 
the  Laws  of  Wisby,  the  Customs  of  Amsterdam,  and 
others.  Still  more  important,  there  had  come,  during  the 
closing  years  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  at  the  beginning  of 
the  modern  period,  even  more  hopeful  evidences  of  a 
growth  of  better  thought.  Men  like  Vittoria,  Soto,  Vas- 
quez,  and  Suarez  in  Spain,  Conrad  Bruno  in  Germany, 
Ayala  in  the  Netherlands,  and,  above  all,  Albericus  Gen- 
tilis  in  England,  were  the  main  agents  in  this  evolution 
of  mercy.  But  the  voices  of  these  men  seemed  imme- 
diately lost  in  the  clamor  and  confusion  of  their  time. 
And  yet  their  efforts  were  not  in  vain. 

' '  One  accent  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
The  heedless  world  hath  never  lost. ' ' 

The  ideas  of  these  men,  no  matter  how  imperfect  and  inad- 
equate, were  received  into  the  mind  of  Grotius.  He  him- 
self makes  ample  acknowledgment  of  this  throughout  his 
writings. 

But,  as  the  Renaissance  progressed,  the  system  devel- 
oped in  diplomacy,  and  war  became  more  and  more  vile. 
The  fundamental  textbook  was  Machiavelli's  Prince. 
Lying  and  treachery  were  the  rule.  Assassination  by 
poison  and  dagger,  as  supplementary  to  war,  was  fre- 
quent.    Catherine  de  Medici,  Philip  II,  Alva,  Des  Adrets, 


GROTIUS  87 

Tilly,  "Wallenstein,  were  simply  incarnations  of  the 
Machiavellian  theories  which  ruled  this  period.1 

The  treatment  of  non-combatants  is  perhaps  the  most 
fearful  element  in  all  this  chaos.  The  unspeakable  cruel- 
ties of  the  war  in  the  Netherlands,  spread  along  through 
more  than  half  a  century,  the  world  knows  by  heart. 

The  Thirty  Years'  War  in  Germany  was  in  many  re- 
spects worse.  Apart  from  a  few  main  leaders,  of  whom 
Gustavus  Adolphus  was  chief,  the  commanders  on  both 
sides  prompted  or  permitted  satanic  cruelties.  Ministers 
of  religion  were  mutilated  in  every  conceivable  way  before 
murder ;  the  churches  were  drenched  in  the  blood  of  non- 
combatants  and  refugees ;  women  treated  with  every  form 
of  indignity  and  cruelty ;  children  hacked  to  pieces  before 
their  parents'  eyes;  the  limbs  of  non-combatants  nailed 
to  the  doors  of  churches;  families  tied  together  and 
burned  as  fagots;  torture  used  to  force  revelations  re- 
garding buried  treasure;  whole  city  populations  put  to 
the  sword;  people  of  great  districts  exterminated;  those 
not  exterminated  by  the  sword  swept  off  in  vast  numbers 
by  pestilence  and  famine.  At  the  taking  of  Magdeburg 
by  Tilly,  six  years  after  the  publication  of  Grotius* 
book,  the  whole  city  was  burned, — only  the  cathedral  and 
a  few  houses  being  left, — and  from  twenty  to  thirty  thou- 
sand inhabitants  were  massacred.  Other  captured  cities 
were  reduced  to  one-fourth  their  original  population; 
hundreds  of  towns  disappeared  from  the  map  of  the 
empire.  During  all  that  period  men  might  cry,  with  the 
king's  son  in  Shakespeare's  Tempest, — 

' '  Hell  is  empty, 
And  all  the  devils  are  here. ' ' 

i  For  excellent  brief  statements  regarding  the  development  of  the 
Machiavellian  doctrines,  see  David  J.  Hill,  History  of  European  Di- 
plomacy, vol.  ii,  pp.  316,  317,  and  Lord  Acton's  introduction  to  Burd's 
translation  of  II  Principe;  for  valuable  suggestions  to  thought,  J.  N. 
Figgis,  From  Gerson  to  Grotius,  Lect.  iii,  Ferrari,  Histoire  de  la  Raison* 


88  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  Treaty  of  Minister, 
Germany  had  not  fully  recovered  the  prosperity  which 
she  enjoyed  before  this  war  of  thirty  years. 

Especially  to  be  noted  in  Grotius'  work  are  the  sources 
from  which  he  develops  it.  These  are  two.  The  first  is 
the  principle  of  natural  morality, — the  commands  of  jus- 
tice written,  as  he  claims,  by  God  on  the  hearts  and 
minds  of  men.  These,  he  says,  are  to  be  ascertained  by 
right  reason, — by  the  powers  of  discernment  which  God 
has  given;  thus  is  obtained  what  he  calls  the  "Law  of 
Nature."  His  second  source  he  finds  in  the  institutions, 
or  enactments,  or  ideas,  which  the  nations  or  gifted  men 
have  agreed  upon  as  right,  necessary,  or  final;  thus  is 
obtained  what  he  calls  the  "Law  of  Nations." 

Difficulties  and  dangers,  many  and  great,  meet  him  at 
once.  Frequently  the  elements  obtained  from  these 
sources  did  not  at  all  agree ; — indeed,  in  some  cases  could 
not  by  any  ordinary  means  be  made  to  agree.  As  re- 
garded the  "Law  of  Nature"  there  were  struggles  with 
theologians  who  pointed  triumphantly  to  texts  of  Scrip- 
ture; as  regarded  the  "Law  of  Nations"  there  were  con- 
flicts with  jurists  who  showed  that  what  he  maintained 
was  by  no  means  what  had  been  held  "always,  every- 
where, and  by  all." 

No  man  of  less  splendid  powers,  intellectual  and  moral, 
could  have  grappled  with  such  opponents  and  triumphed 
over  such  difficulties.  His  genius  as  a  reasoner,  his 
scholarship  so  vast  in  range,  his  memory  bringing  to  him 
the  best  thoughts  of  the  best  thinkers  in  all  literature, 
sacred  and  profane,  ancient  and  modern,  his  skill  in  ap- 
plying the  doctrines  of  Eoman  jurisprudence,  enabled  him 
to  develop  out  of  these  elements  a  system.  But  his  main 
guide  through  all  this  labyrinth  of  difficulties  was  his  own 
earnestness  and  unselfishness,  his  nobility  of  mind,  heart, 

d'Etat,  pt.  2,  sect,  iii,  chaps,  i  and  ii,  and  Dunning,  History  of  Political 
Theories,  vol.  i,  chap.  xi. 


GROTIUS  89 

and  soul.    He  fused  together  right  and  authority  on 
every  fundamental  question,  and  with  precious  results. 

Some  of  the  elements  he  cast  into  his  crucible  were 
doubtful,  and  some  of  his  reasoning  faulty ;  yet,  when  all 
were  submitted  to  the  fervor  of  his  love  of  justice,  the 
result  was  always  the  same, — a  new  doctrine,  clear  and 
lustrous,  a  new  treasure  for  humanity. 

Take,  for  example,  the  fundamental  question  which 
met  him  at  the  outset,  regarding  the  right  of  waging 
war.  He  declares  that  war  is  legitimate  if  just,  and  in 
answer  to  the  question  what  is  a  just  and  proper  motive 
for  war,  he  allows  simply  one  cause, — a  sincere  desire 
for  justice.  To  those  who  confront  him  with  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  he  answers  that  similar  arguments  can 
be  drawn  from  the  Gospels  against  civil  and  penal  justice, 
and  concludes  that  the  doctrines  alluded  to  were  ideals 
and  not  intended  for  literal  embodiment  in  actual  law.1 

As  another  example  of  his  method,  take  his  dealing 
with  the  question  of  wars  for  religion.  He  gives  many 
reasonings  which  are  precious,  but,  with  them,  some  which 
seem  to  us  in  these  days  fallacious  and  even  dangerous. 
He  contends,  for  example,  like  all  men  of  his  time,  that 
war  is  lawful  to  avenge  insults  offered  to  God,  and  brings 
this  contention  into  accord  with  his  fundamental  assertion 
as  to  the  proper  motive  for  war  by  arguing  that  when 
any  nation  insults  the  Almighty  it  endangers  the  very 
foundations  upon  which  all  nations  repose,  thus  violating 
the  rights  of  all,  and  that  war  to  maintain  these  rights  is 
of  course  allowable. 

The  danger  of  this  concession  is  evident,  for  who  is  to 
decide  what  constitutes  an  insult  to  God?  In  one  coun- 
try, men  see  such  an  insult  in  a  neglect  to  kneel  before  the 
consecrated  wafer ;  in  another  country  they  see  it  in  dis- 
respect to  the  sacred  cattle ;  here,  in  eating  flesh  on  Fri- 
day ;  there,  in  catching  fish  on  Sunday.     But  to  this  con- 

1  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  lib.  ii,  cap.  i. 


90  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

cession  Grotius  adds  deductions  from  natural  law  which, 
in  connection  with  his  previous  statements,  give  a  noble 
product,  for  he  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  war  against 
infidel  nations  or  against  heretics  as  such  is  unjust.  He 
says,  "Christianity  consists  of  mysteries  which  cannot 
be  established  by  material  proof,  and  therefore  nations 
cannot  force  them  upon  any  man's  conscience,  or  make 
disbelief  in  them,  by  any  person,  a  crime."  He  reminds 
his  readers  that  all  cannot  believe  who  would  gladly 
believe,  that  belief  comes  by  the  grace  of  God ;  and,  if  war 
against  infidels  cannot  be  justified,  still  less,  he  says,  can 
we  justify  war  against  heretics,  who  have  separated  them- 
selves from  the  Church  on  merely  secondary  beliefs ;  and 
he  cites  the  words  of  Christ,  of  St.  Paul,  of  St.  John,  and 
of  various  fathers  and  doctors  of  the  Church,  as  disap- 
proving forced  conversions.1 

A  striking  example  of  Grotius'  method,  both  in  its 
weakness  and  in  its  strength,  is  his  discussion  of  the 
question  how  far  war  shall  be  extended  as  to  methods 
and  persons.  This  was  a  question  of  capital  importance. 
In  his  time,  the  theory  and  practice  of  antiquity  and  the 
Middle  Ages  were  in  cruel  force.  A  vast  array  of  au- 
thorities, from  the  commands  of  Jehovah  to  the  children 
of  Israel  down  to  the  latest  orders  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  were  frightfully  cruel.  Not  only  might  combat- 
ants who  had  laid  down  their  arms  be  massacred,  but 
non-combatants ;  and  not  only  men,  but  women  and  chil- 
dren. To  the  question — where  is  the  limit  to  what  is 
lawful  and  unlawful? — he  answers:  "The  substance  of 
the  evil  ought  to  be  in  proportion  to  the  right  sought 
and  the  culpability  of  the  enemy  refusing  to  grant  the 
right."  From  this  it  is  easy  for  any  one  to  follow  him 
to  the  conclusion  that,  in  modern  times,  the  criminality 
of  the  enemy  can  rarely,  if  ever,  be  so  great  as  to  war- 

1  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  lib.  ii,  cap.  xx,  par.  48-50. 


GROTIUS  91 

rant  the  massacre  of  prisoners,  and  never  so  great  as  to 
warrant  such  reprisals  as  the  slaughter  and  outrage  of 
innocent  non-combatants. 

That  some  of  his  concessions  were  dangerous  was  the 
fault  of  the  age.  Grotius  could  not,  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  have  solved  the  questions  at  issue  otherwise. 
Had  he  not  paid  every  respect  to  the  Old  Testament 
authorities,  he  would  not  only  have  done  violence  to  his 
own  convictions,  but  would  have  insured  the  suppression 
of  his  book,  by  both  Catholics  and  Protestants,  as  blas- 
phemous. But,  even  in  the  midst  of  these  concessions, 
he  seeks  to  deduce  from  its  best  sources  a  "Law  of 
Nations"  distinct  from  the  "Law  of  Nature,"  yet  com- 
bining with  it.  He  brings  a  mass  of  arguments  to  bear 
against  assassination,  against  dishonor  and  cruelty  to 
women  and  children,  against  plunder,  against  the  whole 
train  of  atrocities  common  in  his  time ;  and  finds  author- 
ity for  his  declaration  after  his  usual  method :  by  citing 
the  ideas  and  practice  of  the  noblest  warriors  and  think- 
ers of  all  nations  and  periods,  thus  stimulating  the  lead- 
ing warriors  and  statesmen  of  his  time,  of  whatever 
creed  or  party,  to  admire  and  imitate  the  noblest  exam- 
ples. The  Eenaissance  had  not  spent  its  force.  It  was 
a  period  when,  as  never  since,  statesmen  and  generals 
emulated  the  great  men  of  antiquity, — and  Grotius* 
method  proved  fruitful  in  clemency.1 

Among  a  vast  number  of  difficult  questions,  comes  up 
the  limit  of  a  conqueror's  rights  over  the  conquered. 
First,  as  to  property,  shall  he  reimburse  himself  by 
stripping  individuals  and  reducing  them  to  poverty,  or 
by  levying  contributions  on  the  entire  nation!  Grotius 
concedes  that  the  authorities  warrant  either  of  these 
methods,  but  his  noble  instincts  again  lift  him  to  a  height 
from   which   he   discerns    a    solution,    and   he   declares 

ifle  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacts,  lib.  iii,  cap.  xii. 


92  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

strongly  in  favor  of  the  modern  and  more  merciful  sys- 
tem of  not  ruining  individuals,  but  of  taxing  the  entire 
hostile  nation. 

Then  the  second  part  of  the  question  comes  up.  What 
is  the  right  of  the  conqueror  as  regards  the  persons 
vanquished?  Here,  too,  his  sane  instincts  have  to  meet 
terrible  precedents  both  in  sacred  and  profane  history, 
but  he  falls  back  on  his  argument  that  the  penalty  should 
be  brought  into  proportion  with  the  offense,  preaches 
clemency  and  moderation,  applies  his  method  of  ascer- 
taining the  Law  of  Nations  from  the  noblest  utterances 
and  examples,  and  leaves  in  his  reader  the  conviction 
that  there  are  few,  if  any,  offenses  in  modern  times  of 
a  nature  which  can  justify  extreme  retaliation. 

Such  is  an  outline  of  Grotius'  main  positions  regard- 
ing a  few  of  the  larger  practical  questions  of  that  and 
after  ages.  That  the  solutions  are  at  times  inconclu- 
sive, especially  in  the  domain  of  what  he  calls  ' '  Natural 
Law,"  is  the  fault  partly  of  his  age,  in  which  it  was 
vain  to  deny  or  combat  authorities  held  sacred,  and 
partly  of  sundry  limitations  in  his  own  reasoning;  but 
his  work  had,  none  the  less,  vast  results, — the  Be  Jure 
Belli  ac  Pads  is  the  real  foundation  of  the  modern  sci- 
ence of  international  law. 

And  here  should  be  mentioned  the  most  penetrating 
of  all  its  doctrines. 

For  a  question  of  more  practical  importance  than  any 
other  arises, — the  nature  of  the  tribunal  in  case  of  an 
infringement  by  one  nation  of  the  rights  of  another. 
His  answer  has  been  fruitful  in  the  past  and  is  to  bear 
still  greater  fruit  in  the  future.  In  his  usual  way,  he 
points  first  of  all  to  authority,  and  quotes  Cicero  as 
follows:  " There  are  two  ways  of  ending  a  dispute, — 
discussion  and  force;  the  latter  manner  is  simply  that  of 
brute  beasts,  the  former  is  proper  to  beings  gifted 
with  reason :  it  is  permitted  then  to  recur  to  violence  only 


GROTIUS  93 

when  reason  is  powerless."  He  then  takes  up  various 
methods  by  which  international  questions  may  be  settled 
without  war,  and  from  these  he  deduces  naturally  the 
idea  of  conferences  and  international  arbitration.  Here 
is  the  culmination  of  his  services  to  mankind.  Others, 
indeed,  had  proposed  plans  for  the  peaceful  settlement 
of  differences  between  nations,  and  the  world  remembers 
them  with  honor;  to  all  of  them — from  Henry  IV  and 
Penn  and  St.  Pierre  and  Kant  and  Bentham  down  to 
the  humblest  writer  in  favor  of  peace — we  may  well  feel 
grateful;  but  the  germ  of  arbitration  was  planted  in 
modern  thought  when  Grotius  wrote  these  solemn  words : 
"But  especially  are  Christian  kings  and  states  bound  to 
try  this  way  of  avoiding  war."  Out  of  the  arguments 
of  which  this  is  the  culmination  has  arisen  the  greatest 
hope  of  mankind  in  its  dealings  with  international  ques- 
tions.1 

The  whole  work  of  Grotius  has  been  often  censured, 
and  harshly.  Some  religionists  have  insisted  that  his 
use  of  reason  unduly  tempered  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture; some  anti-religionists,  that  he  yielded  unduly  to 
Scripture.  Others  have  complained  of  the  arrangement 
of  the  work,  of  its  immense  number  of  citations,  of  what 
they  call  its  "pedantry";  and  among  these  are  Voltaire 
and  Dugald  Stewart.  It  must  be  confessed  that,  won- 
derful as  the  book  is,  its  arrangement,  style,  and  se- 
quence of  thought  are  at  times  vexatious.  Yet  these  are 
but  the  defects  of  its  qualities.  In  the  midst  of  masses 
of  learning  which  not  infrequently  cloud  the  main  issue, 
and  fine-spun  arguments  which  seem  to  lead  nowhither, 
there  frequently  comes  a  pithy  statement,  an  illuminat- 
ing argument,  a  cogent  citation,  which  lights  up  a  whole 
chapter.  It  reminds  an  American  of  Emerson.  Grotius 
has  even  more  than  Emerson's  power  of  pithy  citation, — 
a  power  which  any  one  who  studies  Pufendorf  's  clumsy 

1  Be  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  lib.  ii,  cap.  xxiii,  viii,  3. 


94  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

efforts  to  imitate  it  will  appreciate  painfully.  As  to 
the  charge  based  on  the  number  of  citations,  nothing 
can  be  more  unjust:  that  charge  arises  from  a  complete 
misapprehension  of  Grotius'  method;  the  brilliant  ref- 
utation of  it  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh  is  convincing. 
These  citations  were  in  accordance  with  the  fundamental 
plan  of  the  work,  which  was  to  formulate  the  decisions 
of  right  reason  by  showing  its  action  in  countries  most 
diverse  in  situation  and  history,  and  among  men  most 
different  in  habits  and  opinions.  Grotius'  own  state- 
ment is  conclusive.  He  says :  "In  order  to  give  proofs 
on  questions  respecting  this  Natural  Law,  I  have  made 
use  of  the  testimonies  of  philosophers,  historians,  poets, 
and,  finally,  orators.  Not  that  I  regard  these  as  judges 
from  whose  decision  there  is  no  appeal,  for  they  are 
warped  by  their  party,  their  argument,  their  cause, — 
but  I  quote  them  as  witnesses  whose  conspiring  testi- 
mony, proceeding  from  innumerable  different  times  and 
places,  must  be  referred  to  some  universal  cause  which, 
in  the  questions  with  which  we  are  here  concerned,  can- 
not be  any  other  than  a  right  deduction  proceeding  from 
the  proofs  of  reason  or  some  common  consent.  The 
former  cause  of  agreement  points  to  the  Law  of  Nature, 
the  latter  to  the  Law  of  Nations."  * 

It  has  also  been  objected  that  Grotius  made  a  conces- 
sion fatal  to  humanity,  in  palliating  slavery.  Rousseau 
was  especially  severe  upon  him  for  this. 

But,  in  the  atmosphere  of  Grotius'  discussions  of 
slavery,  an  evolution  of  ideas  destructive  to  all  involun- 
tary servitude  was  sure.  Starting  with  the  idea  that 
slavery  is  the  first  step  from  the  massacre  of  prisoners, 
he  limits  and  modifies  it  in  ways  which  lead  more  and 

i  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  Prolegomena,  par.  40,  Whewell's  translation. 
For  the  admirable  defense  of  this  method  by  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  see 
Pradier-Foderg,  French  edition  of  Grotius'  work,  Paris,  18G7,  tome  i,  p. 
39,  note;  also,  Hallam,  Lit.  of  Europe,  part  iii,  chap,  iv,  with  Hallam'a 
impressive  assent  to  it. 


GROTIUS  95 

more  clearly  to  its  abolition.  He  constantly  finds  miti- 
gations of  the  Law  of  Nations  in  the  Law  of  Nature, 
and  of  the  Law  of  Nature  in  the  Law  of  Nations ;  he  dis- 
sents from  a  theological  argument  that  slaves  have,  by 
the  Law  of  Nations,  no  right  to  escape;  he  limits  the 
right  of  the  master  in  administering  punishment;  he 
insists  that  the  private  acquisitions  of  a  slave,  by  econ- 
omy or  donation,  are  his  own;  that  his  ransom  should 
be  moderate;  that  his  children  should  be  free  save  as 
they  are  held  for  debts  due  for  sustenance  during  their 
minority.  In  behalf  of  justice  and  mercy,  he  cites 
Seneca,  St.  Paul,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  many  oth- 
ers, until  he  finally  rises  to  a  conception  of  human  broth- 
erhood in  which  the  whole  basis  of  slavery,  and  indeed 
its  whole  practice,  must  soon  dissolve  away.1 

Another  of  his  conclusions  which  has  repelled,  and 
even  angered,  many  critics  is  embodied  in  his  statement 
that  to  save  the  state  or  the  city  an  innocent  citizen  might 
be  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  But,  when 
closely  scrutinized,  we  find  it  an  extreme  statement  due 
to  his  horror  of  war, — much  like  that  attributed  to 
Franklin,  that  there  could  not  be  a  good  war  or  a  bad 
peace.  Grotius'  statement  was  evidently  based  on  a  very 
high  conception  of  the  duty  of  the  individual  to  the  state, 
namely,  that  to  save  the  state  the  individual  should  be 
ready  to  sacrifice  himself,  and  that  the  state  had  a  right 
to  presume  on  this  readiness.2 

Another  charge  which  has  been  made  against  him  is 
that  he  committed  himself  virtually  to  the  doctrine  of  a 
primitive  contract  and  was  thus  a  forerunner  of  Rousseau 
and  Robespierre.  This  charge  has  been  made  in  many 
forms  and  reiterated,  even  in  our  own  time,  by  sundry 

i  For  Grotius'  discussion  of  slavery,  see  mainly  the  De  Jure  Belli  ao 
Pads,  lib.  iii,  cap.  vii  and  xiv. 

2  See  Hallam's  wise  remark,  but  especially  the  brief  argument  of 
Whewell  in  a  note  on  his  translation  of  Grotius'  statement,  De  Jure  Belli  ao 
Pads,  lib.  ii,  cap.  xxv,  3,  iii,  1  and  2,  note. 


96  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

countrymen  of  Grotius,  in  whose  hearts  there  still  linger 
the  old  sectarian  hatreds.1 

Nothing  can  be  more  superficial  or  unjust.  The 
" social  contract"  theory  was  not  invented  by  Rousseau; 
a  long  series  of  men  had  labored  at  it,  and,  among  them, 
Hobbes  and  Locke,  with  enormously  different  results. 
Grotius'  theory  is  entirely  different  from  that  of  Rous- 
seau, both  in  its  essence  and  outcome.  To  Rousseau's 
mind,  as  to  that  of  Robespierre,  human  beings  in  a  "state 
of  nature"  were  good,  and  the  generality  of  mankind,  if 
freed  from  the  ideas  and  institutions  of  civilized  society, 
would  return  as  a  whole  to  this  native  goodness.  The 
most  effective  appeal  of  Rousseau's  disciples  was  to  the 
Parisian  mob, — the  same  mob  which  had  applauded  the 
St.  Bartholomew  massacres, — the  same  which,  two  hun- 
dred years  later,  applauded  the  September  massacres  and 
the  cruelties  of  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  which  adored  la 
sainte  guillotine, — the  same  which  glorified  Napoleon- 
ism,  deifying  the  man  who  trampled  on  their  earlier 
ideal  and  sent  them  to  slaughter  by  myriads, — the  same 
which  upheld  the  Commune  with  all  its  absurdities  and 
atrocities.  On  the  other  hand,  while  Grotius  accepted 
the  hypothesis  which  for  so  long  a  time  proved  so  serv- 
iceable, namely,  the  idea  of  original  human  consent  to 
law,  his  appeal  was  not  to  "man  in  a  state  of 
nature"  or  to  a  mob  of  men  in  a  "state  of  nature," 
whether  that  mob  tyrannized  a  village  or  an  empire. 
As  a  student  of  classical  antiquity,  he  knew  that  some 
of  the  worst  of  the  Roman  emperors  had  been  adored  by 
the  people;  as  a  student  of  modern  history,  he  knew 
that  Henry  VIII  of  England  had  been  one  of  the  most 
popular  of  monarchs;  he  knew  but  too  well  that  Philip 
II  of  Spain,  the  monarch  against  whom  his  people  had 

i  For  a  very  striking,  and  even  painful,  example  of  this  prejudice  in 
an  eminent  and  otherwise  excellent  Netherlandish  historian,  see  Groen  van 
Prinsterer,  Maurice  et  Barnevelt,  chap.  xiii. 


GROTIUS  97 

revolted, — narrow,  bloodthirsty,  brutal, — was  yet  con- 
sidered, by  the  vast  majority  of  his  subjects,  as  an 
exponent  of  the  Divine  Will;  he  knew  that  Barneveld, 
one  of  the  strongest  and  noblest  men  Europe  had  ever 
seen,  who  had  served  the  Netherlands  faithfully  in  the 
most  difficult  of  all  emergencies  at  home  and  abroad 
for  forty  years,  had  against  him  the  vast  majority  of 
the  people  of  the  Dutch  Republic  simply  because  he  had 
dreaded  absolutism  and  loved  toleration;  and,  could  he 
have  looked  forward  an  hundred  years,  he  would  have 
seen  two  other  great  Netherlandish  statesmen,  the  De 
Witts,  murdered  by  "the  people"  at  The  Hague,  within 
a  stone's  throw  of  the  spot  where  Barneveld  had  been 
put  to  death.  The  real  appeal  of  Grotius  was  not  to 
"man  in  a  state  of  nature,"  but  to  the  sense  of  justice, 
humanity,  righteousness,  evolved  under  the  reign  of  God 
in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  thinking  men.  His  appeal 
was  not  to  a  "contract  made  in  the  primeval  woods," 
but  to  the  hearts,  minds,  and  souls  of  men,  developed 
under  Christian  civilization. 

Grotius'  appeal  was  not  to  a  mob;  it  was  not,  indeed, 
to  the  average  man  of  the  mob;  it  was  to  the  thinking 
man,  whether  educated  or  uneducated,  whether  Protes- 
tant or  Catholic,  whether  Lutheran  or  Calvinist,  whether 
Gomarist  or  Arminian.  One  feature  of  Grotius'  great 
inspiration  was  his  faith  that  there  were  such  men,  and 
that  an  appeal  to  them  would  be  of  use  to  the  world. 
The  result  of  Rousseau's  idea  was  seen  in  the  excesses 
of  the  French  Revolution,  which  led  to  new  deluges  of 
bloodshed,  both  during  the  Revolution  and  the  reaction 
which  followed  it ;  the  result  of  Grotius '  theory  was  seen 
in  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  of  mercy  to  mankind,  an 
era  in  which  wars  became  infinitely  less  cruel  both  to 
combatants  and  non-combatants.1 

1  For  Rousseau's  theory  and  the  better  character  of  Montesquieu's  view, 
see  Pollock,  Introduction  to  a  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  p.  81. 
7 


98  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Again,  it  has  been  said  that  Grotius,  in  his  great  work,, 
devoting  himself,  as  he  did,  to  the  rights  and  obligations 
of  belligerents,  indicated  too  superficially  the  rights  of 
neutrals. 

No  doubt  this  statement,  made  at  the  Hague  Peace 
Conference  of  1899  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  com- 
patriots and  admirers  of  Grotius,  is  entirely  true.  It 
was  made  in  giving  point  to  a  most  earnest  appeal  for 
the  preparation  of  a  code  of  neutrality  to  be  considered 
at  some  future  meeting  of  the  conference.  But  every 
student  should  be  on  his  guard  against  considering  this 
statement,  in  the  slightest  degree,  a  reproach  to  Grotius. 

For  the  simple  truth  is  that  Grotius  did  the  work 
which  was  set  before  him,  in  view  of  the  necessities  of 
the  world  in  his  time.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to 
make  a  presentation  of  the  rights  and  duties  of  bellig- 
erents. If  he  passed  rapidly  over  the  rights  and  duties 
of  neutrals,  it  was  because  the  time  had  not  arrived  for 
their  full  discussion,  and  also  because  a  neutrality  code 
was  sure  to  be  evolved  at  a  later  period,  out  of  his  work, 
if  it  should  accomplish  his  purpose.  Frederick  the 
Great  once  said  that  his  great  reforming  contemporary, 
Joseph  II,  usually  made  the  mistake  of  taking  the  second 
step  before  the  first.  This  mistake  Grotius  avoided. 
He  simply  took  the  first  step,  no  doubt  with  a  feeling  of 
certainty  that  if  he  could  maintain  his  foothold  the  sec- 
ond step  must  follow. 

It  did  follow;  but  not  until  the  next  centuiy,  when 

For  Rousseau's  hostility  to  Grotius'  ideas,  see  Le  Contrat  Social,  especially 
the  opening  chapters.  For  Rousseau's  minute  description  of  the  process 
and  results  of  forming  the  "social  contract,"  ibid.,  chap.  vii. 

The  translation  by  Whewell  of  the  words  ex  consensu  obligatio,  in  the 
Prolegom.  xvi,  by  the  words  "obligation  by  mutual  compact"  seems  some- 
what likely  to  mislead.  Pradier-Fod6re°s  translation  runs  "l'obligation  que 
l'on  s'est  imposee  par  son  propre  consentement,"  and  this  does  not  seem 
bo  suggestive  of  the  Rousseau  "contract"  theory. 


GROTIUS  99 

Bynkershoek,  inspired  by  Grotius,  began  tliat  long  series 
of  discussions  which,  we  may  hope,  are  soon  to  result  in 
articles  on  the  rights  and  duties  of  neutrals,  presented 
by  future  peace  conferences,  and  accepted  by  all  the  civil- 
ized nations.1 

But  the  good  results  of  Grotius'  book  were  at  first 
veiled.  Except  Gustavus  Adolphus  and  Richelieu,  no 
commander  of  that  time  seems  to  have  read  it.  In 
France,  its  influence  seems  manifest  in  the  mercy  shown 
to  the  Huguenots  after  the  siege  of  La  Rochelle,  but  in 
Germany  the  Thirty  Years'  War  dragged  on  more  and 
more  cruelly  for  over  twenty  years  after  its  publication. 
Commanders  on  both  sides,  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
seemed  to  become  more  and  more  merciless.  Arson, 
bloodshed,  torture,  and  murder  became  more  and  more 
the  rule.  But  at  the  close  of  the  war,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
the  Treaty  of  Westphalia,  some  of  the  fundamental  ideas 
of  Grotius  had  evidently  taken  hold  of  the  plenipotentia- 
ries at  Osnabriick  and  Minister,  and  were  wrought  into 
their  work. 

During  the  fifty  years  which  followed  that  great 
treaty,  the  book,  thanks  to  disciples  like  Pufendorf  and 
Thomasius,  became  more  and  more  known;  but  at  first 
there  was  little  to  show  that  its  ideas  had  taken  practical 
hold  on  Europe.  Louis  XIV,  in  his  policy  at  home  and 
in  his  wars  abroad,  showed  little  trace  of  Grotius'  ideas 
on  either  toleration  or  peace :  le  Grand  Monarque,  under 
the  inspiration  of  his  bishops  and  his  confessor,  did  his 
worst  in  revoking  the  Edict  of  Nantes  and  in  laying 

i  See  the  address  by  Mr.  Asser  before  the  Hague  Conference  and  others 
at  Delft,  July  4,  1899,  as  given  in  Holls:  History  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference at  The  Hague,  pp.  558,  559.  For  a  very  complete  statement,  see 
Woolsey:  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  International  Law,  Revised  Edi- 
tion, 1895,  chap.  ii.  Also,  Hall:  International  Law,  Oxford,  1895, 
part  iv.  Also,  for  a  more  brief,  but  especially  lucid  statement,  see  T.  J. 
Lawrence:     Principles  of  International  Law,  Boston,  1895,  part  iv. 


100  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

waste  the  Palatinate;  but  in  spite  of  his  cold-blooded 
cruelty  there  was  a  steady  diminution  in  military 
ferocity. 

Early  in  the  first  days  of  the  eighteenth  century  came 
the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  spreading  over  much 
of  the  same  German  and  Dutch  territory  which  had  suf- 
fered during  the  Thirty  Years'  War;  but  a  great  change 
was  now  evident.  Instead  of  leaders  like  Mansfield, 
Wallenstein,  Christian  of  Brunswick,  and  so  many  oth- 
ers, who  had  led  in  the  old  atrocities,  there  now  came 
Marlborough,  Eugene,  Villars,  and  other  commanders 
on  both  sides,  who,  as  a  rule,  repressed  pillage,  murder, 
and  arson,  paid  for  supplies  taken  from  the  inhabitants, 
levied  their  contributions  upon  governments  and  not 
upon  individuals,  cared  for  their  prisoners,  were  merci- 
ful to  non-combatants,  and  in  every  way  indicated  an 
immense  progress  in  mercy  and  justice.  Here  and  there, 
it  is  true  that,  in  spite  of  all  that  commanders  could  do, 
cruelties  took  place,  as  in  the  devastation  of  Bavaria  in 
1704;  but,  as  a  rule,  the  ideas  advocated  by  Grotius 
had  begun  to  take  strong  hold  upon  the  world's  best 
thought. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  credit  has  been  bestowed  upon 
Grotius  for  much  that  had  been  given  to  the  world  by 
men  of  earlier  periods.  No  one  will  think  of  denying 
that  there  has  been  a  great  evolutionary  process  as  re- 
gards international  law  and  especially  during  the  last 
three  or  four  centuries,  and  that  in  this  development 
men  like  Vittoria,  Soto,  Ayala,  Gentilis,  Suarez,  and 
others,  have  rendered  noble  services.  But  the  thought- 
ful student  of  European  history  sees  in  Grotius  the  first 
who  rightly  discerned  the  best  in  the  thought  of  all  these 
men, — increasing  it  from  his  own  thought,  strengthening 
it  from  his  broad  knowledge,  enriching  it  from  his  imag- 
ination, glorifying  it  by  his  genius,  and  bringing  it  to 


GROTIUS  101 

bear  upon  the  modern  world, — in  a  new  work  creative 
and  illuminative.1 

And  finally  as  to  the  statement  that  of  all  works  not 
attributed  to  divine  inspiration  Grotius'  book  has  been 
the  most  fruitful  in  blessed  results  to  mankind.  The 
same  claim  has  been  made  by  one  distinguished  historian 
for  Beccaria's  Crimes  and  Punishments,  and  by  another 
for  Adam  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations.  It  is  true  that 
these  three  books  represent  such  precious  conquests  of 
thought  that  they  seem  to  stand  by  themselves,  and  it  is 
true  that  all  three  went  through  purging  fires, — the  De 
Jure  Belli  ac  Pacts  and  the  Crimes  and  Punishments 
being  placed  upon  the  Roman  Index  and  the  Wealth  of 
Nations  being  condemned  by  the  Spanish  Inquisition. 
But,  effective  as  Beccaria's  book  was  in  the  long  struggle 
of  humanity  against  torture  in  procedure  and  penalty,  it 
was  but  one  of  many  as  strong  or  stronger — among  these 
being  the  works  of  Thomasius  and  Voltaire.  And  pow- 
erful for  good  as  Adam  Smith's  work  has  been  against 
unreason  in  legislation  and  administration,  the  claims 
put  forth  for  it  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
will  hardly  be  renewed  in  the  twentieth.  To  say  nothing 
of  doubts  regarding  the  system  of  political  economy 
which  Adam  Smith  advocated,  it  is  more  and  more  evi- 
dent that  the  work  of  Grotius  was  on  a  yet  higher  plane, 
was  obedient  to  more  lofty  ideals,  and  is  to-day  produc- 
ing wider  and  deeper  results  for  the  good  of  all  mankind.2 

i  For  excellent  studies  of  the  work  of  Grotius'  predecessors  above  named, 
see  Wheaton:  Histoire  des  Progres  du  Droit  des  Gens,  Introduction;  and 
especially  D.  J.  Hill's  History  of  European  Diplomacy,  ii,  Dunning's  Po- 
litical Theories,  ii,  and  Walker's  History  of  the  Laic  of  Nations,  i.  It  may 
also  be  mentioned  that  the  Carnegie  Institution  at  Washington  is  now 
publishing  a  monumental  edition  of  what  may  be  called  "Classics  of 
International  Law,"  including  those  above  named  and  others,  each  in  its 
original  and  its  translated  form. 

2  As  to  Grotius  and  the  Index,  his  various  theological  and  historical 
writings  were  naturally  prohibited.  So  too  his  Mare  Liberum,  doubtless 
because  it  attacked  Pope  Alexander  VI's  comical  bull  dividing  the  world 


102  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

between  east  and  -west.  The  Be  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis  was  placed  on  the 
Index,  but  only  "until  corrected."  No  corrected  edition  was  ever  pub- 
lished, and  the  prohibition  of  it  was  not  removed  until  Leo  XIII,  the 
wisest  of  the  popes  since  Benedict  XIV,  in  1901  cleared  from  the  Index 
this  and  many  other  books  of  which  the  prohibition,  sanctioned  by 
previous  infallible  popes,  had  provoked  scandal. 

Pope  Leo  had  earnestly  sought  admission  for  a  delegation  representing 
him  at  the  Hague  Conference  of  1899,  but  he  had  been  unsuccessful. 
Among  various  arguments  against  the  admission  of  his  representatives  was 
the  fact  that  the  very  book  which  lay  at  the  foundation  of  arbitration  by 
an  international  tribunal  was  still  prohibited  by  the  Church. 

Beccaria's  Dei  Delitti  e  delle  Pene,  though  one  of  the  books  most  fruit- 
ful in  good  ever  written,  and  though  its  author  was  a  devout  churchman, 
was  put  on  the  Index  February  3,  1766,  within  two  years  after  its  first 
issue,  and  is  there  yet.  See  the  various  editions  of  the  Index,  also 
the  books  of  Reusch  and  Hilgers  on  the  Index  and  Putnam's  The  Censor- 
ship of  the  Church  of  Rome, 


Ill 

WE  may  now  return  to  Grotius'  personal  history 
and  to  his  fruitful  labor  in  another  field  of  human- 
itarian effort. 

Until  1631,  he  remained  in  Paris,  greatly  honored,  yet 
often  suffering  from  poverty.  The  pension  granted  him 
by  Louis  XIII  was  rather  honorable  than  useful;  it  was 
rarely  paid. 

Interwoven  throughout  all  his  efforts  for  peace  and 
mercy  was  his  continuous  labor  for  Religious  Toleration. 
A  great  publicist  has  said  that  "  intolerance  was  then  the 
common  law  of  Europe."  More  than  any  other  of  his 
contemporaries,  Grotius  wrought  to  undermine  it.  Nei- 
ther triumphs  nor  sufferings  abated  his  steady  labor. 
Treatises  philosophical  and  historical,  translations  and 
commentaries  in  which  the  first  rank  in  the  scholarship 
of  his  time  was  reached,  came  constantly  from  his  pen; 
but  his  great  work  during  this  period  was  one  which  he 
had  begun  during  his  imprisonment  at  the  Castle  of 
Loevestein, — his  Truth  of  Christianity.  Though  in  ad- 
vance of  his  time,  its  success  was  enormous.  Five  times 
it  was  translated  from  the  original  Latin  into  French, 
three  times  into  German,  and,  beside  this,  into  English, 
Swedish,  Danish,  Flemish,  Greek,  Chinese,  Malay,  Per- 
sian, and  Arabic.  Its  ideas  spread  widely  among  Euro- 
pean Christians  of  every  name,  Catholic  and  Protestant, 
Arminian  and  Calvinistic,  Lutheran  and  Anglican. 
The  reason  was  simple.  It  was  a  Christian  book,  but 
not  sectarian.  It  was  written  with  full  belief  in  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity,  with  but  slight  re- 
gard for  the  questions  which  divided  Christians.     At 

103 


104        SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

first  it  succeeded,  but  at  last  came  the  inevitable  outcry. 
Narrow  men  on  either  side  insisted  that  the  book  was 
not  sufficiently  "positive."  Bigoted  Protestants  began 
to  express  hatred  of  it  because  it  was  not  more  "posi- 
tive" in  showing  the  weakness  of  Catholicism;  bigoted 
Catholics  because  it  was  not  more  "positive"  in  showing 
the  weakness  of  Protestantism;  bigoted  Lutherans  be- 
cause it  was  not  more  "positive"  in  argument  against 
Calvinism;  bigoted  Calvinists  because  it  was  not  more 
"positive"  in  denunciation  of  Lutheranism. 

All  insisted  that  Grotius  neglected  many  of  the  great 
doctrinal  statements  developed  by  theologians.  On  the 
fact  that  Grotius  evidently  preferred  the  simple  teaching 
of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  were  based  the  strongest 
charges  against  him.  Voetius,  an  especially  bitter  foe, 
in  answer  to  Grotius'  assertions  of  Christian  truth  de- 
clared that  "to  place  the  principal  part  of  religion  in  the 
observance  of  Christ's  commands  is  rank  Socinianism." 
This  book,  too,  was  put  upon  the  Index  at  Eome,  and  its 
use  discouraged  by  various  eminent  Protestant  author- 
ities. Still,  it  was  effective.  Its  plan  of  defense  has 
long  since  been  abandoned ;  the  work  begun  by  Erasmus 
has  brought  the  world  beyond  it.  Biblical  criticism  was 
then  in  its  infancy,  and  the  growth  of  it  has  made  neces- 
sary different  methods  and  new  statements;  but  Gro- 
tius' book  on  the  Christian  religion  does  its  author  none 
the  less  honor.  None  the  less,  too,  has  the  book  been  a 
blessing  to  mankind  in  calling  the  attention  of  the  Chris- 
tian world  to  religious  realities  and  away  from  theolog- 
ical subtleties.  In  this,  as  in  all  his  writings,  Grotius 
struggled  as  a  peacemaker,  and  in  his  dedication  to  King 
Louis  XIII  he  especially  pleads  for  toleration.  In  one 
of  his  letters  to  his  brother,  he  says,  "I  shall  never  cease 
to  do  my  utmost  for  establishing  peace  among  Chris- 
tians, and  if  I  do  not  succeed  it  will  be  honorable  to  die 
in  such  an  enterprise."    And  again,  "If  there  were  no 


GROTIUS  105 

hopes  of  success  at  present,  ought  we  not  to  sow  the  seed 
which  may  be  useful  for  posterity?"  And  again,  "Even 
if  we  should  only  diminish  the  mutual  hatred  among 
Christians,  would  not  this  be  worth  purchasing  at  the 
price  of  some  labor  and  reproach?"  x 

In  1631,  Maurice  of  Orange  having  died  five  or  six 
years  before,  and  his  successor,  Prince  Henry,  seeming 
inclined  to  lenity,  Grotius  endeavored  to  return  to  Hol- 
land. But  his  reception  was  disappointing: — at  first 
merely  chilly ;  but  erelong  the  Calvinist  bigots  of  the  day 
bestirred  themselves,  and  in  March,  1632,  to  such  pur- 
pose that  the  States-General  offered  a  reward  of  two 
thousand  guilders  to  any  one  who  should  deliver  him  up 
to  them.  Again  he  became  an  exile.  His  first  place  of 
refuge  was  Hamburg,  and  there,  giving  himself  to  lit- 
erary work,  he  waited  again  for  the  return  of  reason 
among  his  countrymen ;  though  flattering  offers  were 
now  made  him  by  the  King  of  Denmark,  by  Spain,  and 
even  by  Wallenstein,  who  was  the  real  dictator  of  Ger- 
many, he  refused  them  all.  He  still  looked  lovingly  to- 
ward the  little  Dutch  Eepublic ;  and  it  was  only  after  two 
years  of  weary  waiting  that  he  gave  up  that  hope  and 
entered  the  service  of  Sweden. 

The  invitation  to  this  service  was  honorable  both  in 
its  character  and  its  source.  Gustavus  Adolphus  had 
fallen  at  Liitzen,  but  he  had  left  a  request  that  Grotius 
be  secured  for  his  kingdom;  his  great  chancellor,  Oxen- 
stiern,  bore  this  in  mind,  and  in  1635  sent  Grotius  as 
Swedish  Ambassador  to  Paris.  The  position  was  im- 
portant, for  Sweden  was  then  one  of  the  leading  militant 
powers  of  Europe;  but  the  task  of  the  new  ambassador 
soon  became  trying.  Though  the  French  government 
was  at  heart  almost  as  jealous  of  Sweden  as  of  Austria, 
he  was  expected  to  keep  France  and  Sweden  active  allies ; 
and,  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  the  government  of  his 

i  See  his  Epistolce,  363,  494,  1706,  cited  by  Butler. 


N 


106  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

native  country,  both  for  public  and  private  reasons,  en- 
deavored to  thwart  him.  In  all  the  more  important  part 
of  his  mission,  Grotius  succeeded  well ;  in  the  lesser  parts 
he  was  not  so  happy.  There  were  questions  of  etiquette 
and  form:  Richelieu  must  be  nattered;  various  parties 
must  be  petted  or  bribed.  For  such  service  Grotius  was 
ill  fitted:  it  is  related  that,  while  waiting  in  the  ante- 
rooms at  Court,  instead  of  chattering  nonsense,  he  stud- 
ied his  Greek  Testament. 

During  his  final  stay  in  Paris  he  employed  his  leisure 
in  various  works,  among  them  an  investigation  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  American  tribes  and  an  exegetical  study 
upon  the  Bible;  but,  though  this  latter  showed  good 
scholarship,  its  significance  in  modern  criticism  is  small. 
He  did,  indeed,  declare  his  conviction  that  sundry  proph- 
ecies in  the  Old  Testament,  generally  supposed  to  refer 
to  the  coming  of  the  Messiah,  had  reference  to  events 
accomplished  before  that  event,  and  this  brought  upon 
him  much  obloquy;  but,  however  discredited  by  this  au- 
dacity, his  work  was  useful.  At  this  time,  too,  he  wrote 
his  history  of  the  Netherlands,  and  from  it  one  of  his 
best  traits  shines  forth  brightly:  he  was  called,  as  his- 
torian, to  discuss  the  character  and  services  of  Maurice 
of  Orange ;  Maurice  had  unjustly  deprived  him  of  home, 
property,  and  freedom,  and  sought  to  deprive  him  of 
life ; — but  Grotius  points  out  none  the  less  fully  his  serv- 
ices as  a  commander  and  patriot ;  not  a  trace  of  ill  will 
apj)ears  in  any  of  his  judgments. 

The  Swedish  government  showed  erelong,  not  unnat- 
urally, the  belief  that  one  who  did  so  much  literary  work 
could  hardly  do  the  political  work  required  in  such  stir- 
ring times;  his  personal  relations  to  Richelieu  and 
Mazarin  had  become  irksome  to  him;  and,  in  1645,  he 
resigned  his  ambassadorship  and  returned,  first  to  Hol- 
land, where,  at  last,  he  was  more  kindly  received. 
Thence  he  went  to  Sweden,  took  formal  leave  of  Queen 


GROTIUS  107 

Christina,  and  started  upon  his  return  voyage,  hoping  to 
pass  the  remainder  of  his  life  in  his  native  country. 
But  it  was  not  so  to  be.  The  ship  was  thrown  by  a  storm 
upon  the  Pomeranian  coast,  and  Grotius,  having  after 
great  suffering  reached  Rostock,  lay  down  to  die. 

The  simple  recital  of  the  Lutheran  pastor,  Quistorp, 
who  was  with  him  in  his  last  moments,  touches  the  deep 
places  of  the  human  heart.  The  pastor  made  no  effort 
to  wrestle  with  the  dying  scholar  and  statesman,  but  sim- 
ply read  to  him  the  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the 
publican,  ending  with  the  words,  "God  be  merciful  to  me, 
a  sinner."  And  the  dying  man  answered,  "I  am  that 
publican. ' ' 

On  the  28th  of  August,  1645,  he  breathed  his  last.  It 
had  not  been  given  to  him  to  see  any  apparent  result  of 
his  great  gift  to  mankind.  From  his  childhood  to  his 
last  conscious  moments,  he  had  known  nothing  but  war, 
bigoted,  cruel,  revengeful  war,  extending  on  all  sides 
about  him.  The  Peace  of  Westphalia,  which  was  to  be 
so  largely  influenced  by  him,  was  not  signed  until  three 
years  after  his  death.  One  may  hope  that  the  faith 
which  led  him  to  write  the  book  gave  him  power  to  divine 
some  of  its  results. 

His  first  burial  was  at  Rostock,  the  German  town  where 
he  died,  and  there,  before  the  high  altar  of  its  great 
church,  to-day  is  sacredly  preserved,  as  a  holy  place,  the 
tomb  in  which  his  body  was  then  enshrined. 

But  his  wish  had  been  to  rest  in  his  native  soil,  and, 
after  a  time,  his  remains  were  conveyed  to  the  Nether- 
lands. It  is  hard  to  believe,  and  yet  it  is  recorded  his- 
tory, that  as  his  coffin  was  borne  through  the  city  of 
Rotterdam  stones  were  thrown  at  it  by  the  bigoted  mob. 
Finally,  it  was  laid  in  a  crypt  beneath  the  great  church  of 
Delft,  his  birthplace. 

Few  monuments  are  more  suggestive  to  the  thinking 
traveler  than  that  ancient  edifice.     There  lie  the  bones  of 


108  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

men  who  took  the  lead  in  saving  the  Dutch  Republic  and 
civil  liberty  from  the  bigotry  of  Spain.  Above  all,  in  the 
apse,  towers  the  canopied  tomb  of  William  the  Silent, — 
sculptured  marble  and  molten  bronze  showing  forth  the 
majesty  of  his  purpose  and  the  gratitude  of  his  people. 
Hard  by,  in  a  quiet  side  aisle,  is  the  modest  tomb  of 
Grotius,  its  inscription  simple  and  touching.  Each  of 
these  two  great  men  was  a  leader  in  the  service  of  liberty 
and  justice;  each  died  a  martyr  to  unreason.  Both  are 
"risen  from  the  dead,  and  live  evermore"  in  modern 
liberty,  civil  and  religious,  in  modern  law  fatal  to 
tyranny,  in  modern  institutions  destructive  to  intolerance, 
and,  above  all,  in  the  heart  and  mind  of  every  man  who 
worthily  undertakes  to  serve  the  nobler  purposes  of  his 
country  or  the  larger  interests  of  his  race. 

Thrice  during  the  latter  half  of  the  century  just  closed 
did  the  world  pay  homage  at  this  shrine.  The  first  occa- 
sion was  on  April  10,  1883, — the  three-hundredth  anni- 
versary of  Grotius'  birth,  when  the  people  of  the 
Netherlands  honored  themselves  and  mankind  by  a  due 
celebration  of  it.  The  second  act  of  homage  took  place 
three  years  later,  at  the  erection  of  the  bronze  statue  to 
his  memory  in  front  of  the  church  where  he  lies  buried. 
Most  worthily  did  the  eminent  Minister  of  the  Nether- 
lands, M.  de  Beaufort,  dwell  on  the  services  thus  com- 
memorated, and  the  vast  audience  showed  that  the 
country  at  last  recognized  its  illustrious  servant.  Yet 
there  came  one  note  of  discord.  A  touching  feature  in 
the  tribute  was  the  singing  of  simple  hymns  by  a  great 
chorus  of  school-children ;  but  in  this  chorus  a  section  of 
the  more  determined  adherents  of  the  old  rigid  Calvinist 
orthodoxy  refused  to  allow  their  children  to  join.  One  of 
their  representatives,  indeed,  declared  that  the  statue  was 
fitly  placed,  since  its  back  was  turned  to  the  Church ;  to 
this  it  was  rejoined  that  the  statue  was  indeed  fitly 
placed,  since  its  face  was  turned  towards  Justice.     The 


GROTIUS  109 

allusion  was  to  the  fact  that  the  monument  faced  the 
Palace  of  Justice  and  the  effigy  of  Justice  adorning  it. 

The  third  of  these  recognitions  was  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  1899.  On  that  day,  the  American  delegation  to  the 
Peace  Conference  of  The  Hague  celebrated  the  anni- 
versary of  American  independence  by  placing,  in  behalf 
of  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  which  had 
especially  authorized  and  directed  it,  a  wreath  of  oak 
and  laurel  leaves,  wrought  in  silver  and  gold  with  appro- 
priate inscriptions,  on  the  tomb  of  Grotius.  The  audi- 
ence filling  the  vast  church  comprised  not  only  the  ambas- 
sadors and  other  delegates  to  the  conference,  but  the 
ministers  of  the  Dutch  Crown,  professors  from  the 
various  universities  of  the  Netherlands,  and  a  great  body 
of  invited  guests  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  A  letter 
was  read  from  the  King  of  Sweden  and  Norway,  ex- 
pressing the  gratitude  of  the  power  which  Grotius  had 
so  faithfully  served;  the  ministers  of  the  Netherlandish 
Crown  and  the  delegates  of  the  American  Eepublic  united 
in  presenting  the  claims  of  Grotius  to  remembrance ;  the 
music  of  the  chimes,  of  the  great  organ,  and  of  the  royal 
choir  rolled  majestically  under  the  arches  of  the  vast 
edifice:  all  in  tribute  to  him  who,  first  among  men,  had 
uttered  clearly  and  strongly  that  call  to  arbitration  which 
the  conference  at  The  Hague  was  then  making  real. 

And  it  may  well  be  hoped  that  early  in  the  twentieth 
century  there  will  come  yet  another  recognition.  By  the 
gift  of  an  American  citizen,  provision  has  been  made 
for  a  Palace  of  International  Justice  in  which  the  Court 
of  Arbitration  created  by  the  Hague  Conference  may  hold 
its  sessions.  Thanks  to  the  munificence  of  that  gift,  the 
world  has  a  right  to  expect  that  this  temple  of  peace  will 
be  worthy  of  its  high  purpose :  its  dome  a  fitting  outward 
and  visible  sign  to  all  peoples  that  at  last  there  is  a 
solution  of  international  questions  other  than  by  plunder 
and  bloodshed;  its  corridors  ennobled  by  the  statues, 


110  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

busts,  and  medallions  of  those  who  have  opened  this 
path  to  peace ;  its  walls  pictured  with  the  main  events  in 
this  evolution  of  Humanity.  But  among  these  memorials, 
one  monument  should  stand  supreme, — the  statue  of 
Grotius.  And  in  his  hand  may  well  be  held  forth  to  the 
world  his  great  book,  opened  at  that  inspired  appeal  in 
behalf  of  international  arbitration : — 

"  Maxime  autem  Christiani  reges  et  civitates  tenentur 
hanc  inire  viam  ad  arma  vitanda. ' ' 


THOMASIUS 


THOMASIUS 


THE  year  1688  is  memorable  for  two  revolutions — 
one  in  England,  the  other  in  Germany.  In  England 
a  conspiracy, — partly  patriotic,  partly  rascally, — de- 
throned the  last  of  the  Stuarts;  in  Germany  a  young 
Leipzig  professor  began  giving  lectures,  not  in  Latin 
but  in  German.1 

Each  of  the  revolutions  thus  begun  ended  an  evil  phase 
of  history  which  had  lasted  during  centuries ;  each  began 
a  better  phase  which  lasts  to-day.  A  plausible  argument 
might  be  made  to  show  that  of  these  two  revolutions  the 
act  of  the  German  professor  was  really  the  more  impor- 
tant. For,  if  the  work  of  William  of  Orange  and  his  par- 
tisans was  to  destroy  Stuartism,  with  all  its  lying 
kingcraft,  and  to  set  in  motion  causes  which  have  directly 
developed  the  constitutionalism  of  England,  of  the  United 
States,  and  of  many  other  modern  nations,  the  work  of 
this  young  professor  and  his  disciples  was  to  dethrone 
the  heavy  Protestant  orthodoxy  which  had  nearly  smoth- 
ered German  patriotism,  to  undermine  the  pedantry  which 
had  paralyzed  German  scholarship,  to  substitute  thought 

i  Luden,  the  biographer  of  Thomasius,  assigns  this  act  to  1688,  and 
in  this  he  has  been  followed  by  most  modern  writers  on  Thomasius.  The 
latest  students,  however  (Nieoladoni,  Landsberg,  Hoffmann),  point  out 
that  Thomasius  himself — in  his  "Lesser  German  Writings"  ( 1701 ) ,  and 
in  his  "Thoughts  and  Reminiscences"  (1721) — names  1687  as  the  date 
when  these  German  lectures  were  announced.  But  the  course  belonged 
mainly  to  the  following  year,  and  it  was  then,  with  the  appearance  in 
January  of  his  German  magazine,  that  the  struggle  was  fairly  begun. 
The  best  guide  to  the  growing  literature  on  Thomasius  is  now  the  biblio- 
graphical note  of  Landsberg,  in  Stintzing  and  Landsberg's  Geschichte  der 
Deutscheti  Rechtswissenschaft,  iii,  2. 

8  113 


114  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

for  formulas,  to  bring  right  reason  to  bear  upon  interna- 
tional and  municipal  law,  to  discredit  religious  intoler- 
ance, to  root  out  witchcraft  persecution  and  procedure  by 
torture  from  all  modern  codes,  and  to  begin  that  emanci- 
pation of  public  and  especially  university  instruction  from 
theological  control  which  has  given  such  strength  to  Ger- 
many, and  which  to-day  is  invincibly  making  its  way  in 
all  other  lands,  including  our  own. 

That  we  may  understand  this  work,  let  us  look  rapidly 
along  the  century  and  a  half  which  had  worn  on  since  the 
time  of  Luther  and  Melanchthon. 

Even  before  Melanchthon  sank  into  his  grave,  he  was 
dismayed  at  seeing  Lutheranism  stiffen  into  dogmas  and 
formulas,  and  heartbroken  by  a  persecution  from  his 
fellow-Protestants  more  bitter  than  anything  he  had  ever 
experienced  from  Catholics.1 

Luther  had,  indeed,  been  at  times  intolerant;  but  his 
intolerance  towards  Carlstadt  was  simply  the  irritation 
of  a  strong  man  at  nagging  follies, — the  impatience  of  a 
sensible  father  with  a  child  who  persists  in  playing  with 
firebrands.  Far  worse  was  his  intolerance  toward 
Zwingli.  That  remains  the  main  blot  on  his  great  career 
— and  a  dark  blot ;  yet,  with  all  this,  he  was  in  breadth  and 
fairness  of  mind  far  beyond  his  associates.  But  the 
theologians  who  took  up  the  work  which  the  first  reform- 
ers had  laid  down  soon  came  to  consider  intolerance  as  a 
main  evidence  of  spiritual  life:  erelong  they  were  using 
all  their  powers  in  crushing  every  germ  of  new  thought. 
Their  theory  was  simply  that  the  world  had  now  reached 
its  climax ;  that  the  religion  of  Luther  was  the  final  word 
of  God  to  man;  that  everything  depended  upon  keeping 
it  absolutely  pure;  that  men  might  comment  upon  it  in 
hundreds  of  pulpits  and  lecture  rooms  and  in  thousands 

1  For  a  most  eloquent  reference  to  Melanchthon's  last  struggle  with 
Lutheran  bigotry  and  fanaticism,  see  A.  Harnack,  Address  Before  the 
University  of  Berlin,  1897,  pp.  16  and  following. 


THOMASIUS  115 

of  volumes;  but — change  it  in  the  slightest  particle — 
never. 

And  in  order  that  it  might  never  be  changed  it  was 
petrified  into  rituals  and  creeds  and  catechisms  and  state- 
ments, and,  above  all,  in  1579,  into  the  "Formula  of 
Concord,"  which,  as  more  than  one  thoughtful  man  has 
since  declared,  turned  out  to  be  a  "formula  of  discord." 

For  ten  years  the  strong  men  of  the  Lutheran  Church 
labored  to  make  this  creed  absolutely  complete;  to 
clamp  and  bind  it  as  with  bonds  of  steel ;  to  exclude  from 
it  every  broad  idea  that  had  arisen  in  the  mind  and  soul 
of  Melanchthon;  to  rivet  every  joint,  so  that  the  atmos- 
phere of  outside  thought  might  never  enter.  At  last, 
then,  in  1579,  after  ten  years  of  work,  the  structure  was 
perfect.  Henceforth  until  the  last  day  there  was  to  be 
no  change. 

But,  like  all  such  attempts,  it  came  to  naught.  The 
hated  sister  sect  grew  all  the  more  lustily.  When  the 
"Formula  of  Concord"  was  made,  Calvinism  was  com- 
paratively an  obscure  body  in  Protestant  Germany,  but 
within  a  generation  it  prevailed  in  at  least  one  quarter  of 
the  whole  nation,  and  had  taken  full  possession  of  the 
dominant  German  state  of  the  future,  the  Electorate  of 
Brandenburg.1 

The  result,  then,  of  all  this  labor  was  that  the  Prot- 
estants quarreled  more  savagely  than  ever;  that,  while 
they  were  thus  quarreling,  Protestantism  largely  lost  its 
hold  upon  Germany;  that  Roman  Catholicism, — no 
longer  dull  and  heavy,  but  shrewd,  quick,  aggressive, — 
with  the  Jesuits  as  its  spiritual  army  and  Peter  Canisius 
as  its  determined  head, — pushed  into  the  territory  of  its 
enemies,  reconverted  great  numbers  of  German  rulers 
and  leaders  of  thought  disgusted  at  the  perpetual  quar- 
reling in  the  Protestant  body,  availed  itself  skillfully  of 

1  See  Biedermann :  Deutschland  im  Achtzehnten  Jahrhundert,  vol.  ii, 
pp.  291    et  seq. 


116  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Protestant  dissensions  and  waged  the  Thirty  Years' War 
— thus  bringing  back  to  the  old  faith  millions  of  Germans 
who  had  once  been  brought  under  the  new. 

Yet,  even  after  these  results  were  fully  revealed,  and 
despite  most  earnest  pleas  for  concord  by  many  true 
men,  clerical  and  lay,  a  great  body  of  conscientious 
ecclesiastics  continued  to  devote  themselves  to  making 
the  breach  between  Lutherans  and  Calvinists  ever  wider 
and  deeper.  Various  leading  theologians  gave  all  their 
efforts  to  building  up  vast  fabrics  of  fanaticism  and  hurl- 
ing epithets  at  all  other  builders.  Their  bitterness  was 
beyond  belief.  Just  before  the  beginning  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  Parseus,  a  Calvinistic  divine  of  great  abilities 
and  deeply  Christian  spirit,  proposed  that  Lutherans  and 
Calvinists  unite  in  celebrating  the  hundredth  anniversary 
of  the  Eeformation.  Both  sides  denounced  him.  The 
leaders  at  the  Lutheran  universities  of  Tubingen  and 
"Wittenberg  united  in  declaring  the  scheme  "a  poisonous 
seduction  of  hell." 

Still  later,  when  the  Thirty  Years'  War  was  showing 
the  monstrous  results  of  Protestant  bigotry  and  want  of 
unity,  the  leading  court  preacher  of  Saxony  thundered 
from  the  pulpit  the  words : — ' '  To  help  the  Calvinists  to 
free  use  of  their  worship  is  against  God  and  Conscience, 
and  nothing  less  than  to  do  homage  to  the  founder  of  the 
Calvinistic  monstrosity — Satan  himself."  1 

When  Tilly  began  the  siege  of  Magdeburg,  which  ended 
in  the  most  fearful  carnival  of  outrage  and  murder 
the  world  had  seen  since  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew, efforts  to  relieve  that  city  were  cruelly  hindered  by 
these  same  Protestant  dissensions.  At  about  the  same 
time,  the  period  when  peasants  began  to  declare  their 
doubts  of  the  existence  of  a  God  who  could  permit  such 
terrible  evils  as  were  brought  upon  them  by  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  the  magistracy,  at  a  religious  discussion  in 

1  See  Biedermann,  as  above,  vol.  ii,  pp.  291  et  seq. 


THOMASIUS  117 

Thorn,  in  1645,  having  forbidden  blackguardism  and  call- 
ing of  names  and  hurling  of  epithets  from  the  pulpit, 
the  eminent  Calovius,  with  two  other  Lutheran  divines, 
protested  so  vigorously  that  the  order  was  revoked. 
And  when  the  evil  consequences  of  discord  had  been 
stamped  into  men's  minds  even  more  deeply,  and  various 
statesmen  and  even  ecclesiastics  sought  to  promote  more 
kindly  views,  John  Heinzelmann,  eminent  as  pastor  of  the 
Nicolai-Kirche  in  Berlin,  declared,  "Whosoever  is  not  a 
Lutheran  is  accursed."  1 

All  attempts  by  wise  men  to  put  an  end  to  this  scandal 
seemed  utterly  in  vain.  The  Great  Elector  of  Branden- 
burg having  published  a  decree  exhorting  all  the  clergy, 
both  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic,  to  keep  the  peace,  Paul 
Gerhard,  a  gentle  and  deeply  religious  soul,  whose  hymns 
Christians  are  singing  to-day  in  all  lands,  declared  that 
he  could  not  conscientiously  obey — that  he  could  not  con- 
sider Calvinists  his  brother  Christians.  Against  this 
decree  of  the  Elector  sundry  clergy  appealed  to  the 
theological  faculties  of  Helmstadt,  Jena,  Wittenberg,  and 
Leipzig,  and  to  the  clergy  of  Hamburg  and  Nurnberg,  to 
know  whether  the  order  of  the  Elector  was  to  be  obeyed ; 
and  very  nearly  all  these  bodies  answered,  "No;  ye  are 
to  obey  God  rather  than  man. ' '  The  University  of  Wit- 
tenberg went  a  step  further  and  showed  that  while  the 
duty  of  Calvinists  was  to  tolerate  Lutheranism,  the  duty 
of  Lutherans  was  to  persecute  Calvinism,  because,  as 
they  said,  "the  Lutherans  can  prove  Calvinism  to  be 
false."2 

A  justly  eminent  Protestant  theologian  of  the  17th 
century,  George  Calixt,  exerted  himself  for  peace ;  and  on 
him  was  fastened  the  epithet  "  Syncretist. "    The  mean- 

iSee  Biedermann,  as  above,  vol.  ii,  pp.  272,  291-293;  Landwehr,  Die 
Kirchenpolitik  des  Grossen  Kurfiirsten,  Berlin,  1894,  p.  197;  also  citations 
from  Hagenbach,  Ranke,  and  others  in  Klemperer,  Christian  Thomasius, 
Landsberg,  1877. 

2  See  Biedermann,  ii,  294. 


118  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ing  of  this  terrible  word  was,  virtually,  harmonizer ;  but, 
when  repeated  in  the  ears  of  the  people,  it  aroused  as 
much  horror  and  brought  as  much  persecution  as  the 
epithet  "atheist"  would  have  done. 

And  Spener  came, — seeking  to  revive  devotion  in  the 
Church.  He  urged  Christianity  as  a  life  and  not  a 
repetition  of  formulas;  his  personal  creed  was  "ortho- 
dox" in  every  particular,  his  life  was  saintly,  his  words 
wrought  as  a  charm  on  multitudes  to  make  them  more 
true  and  noble — all  to  no  purpose.  He  was  driven  by 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  out  of  pulpit  after  pulpit, 
and  his  own  goodness  and  the  goodness  produced  in  his 
disciples  were  held  by  his  clerical  superiors  to  increase 
his  sin.  August  Hermann  Francke  began  the  career 
which  resulted  in  the  creation  of  the  most  magnificent 
charity  ever  established  by  a  German  Protestant — the 
Orphan  House  at  Halle — but  for  years  he  was  driven 
from  post  to  post  for  his  lack  of  fanatical  zeal.  Genera- 
tion after  generation  raised  men  who  labored  in  vain  for 
peace ;  they  were  simply  denounced  as  shallow,  impious, 
and  the  epithet  "Syncretist"  was  hurled  at  them  as  a 
deadly  missile.  The  greatest  German  philosopher  of  the 
century,  Leibnitz,  attempted  to  find  some  common  ground 
and  was  declared  to  be  "worse  than  an  atheist." 

Hardly  better  was  it  in  science  and  literature.  The 
universities  were  fettered  by  theological  clamps;  pro- 
fessors, instructors — even  fencing  masters  and  dancing 
masters — were  obliged  to  take  oath  to  believe  and  support 
the  required  creed  in  all  its  niceties.  Galileo's  dis- 
coveries were  received  by  the  ruling  Protestant  ecclesi- 
astics with  distrust  and  even  hostility.  When  Kepler 
began  to  publish  the  results  of  his  researches,  the  Stutt- 
gart Consistory,  on  September  25,  1612,  warned  him 
"to  tame  his  too  penetrating  nature,  and  to  regulate 
himself  in  all  his  discoveries  in  accordance  with  God's 
word  and  the  Testament  and  Church  of  the  Lord,  and 


THOMASIUS  119 

not  to  trouble  them  with  his  unnecessary  subtleties, 
scruples,  and  glosses."  The  standing  still  of  the  sun 
for  Joshua  was  used  against  Galileo  by  the  Protestant 
authorities  in  Germany  as  it  was  used  against  him  by 
the  Inquisition  at  Rome.  The  letter  of  the  Eeformation 
Fathers  was  everything ;  their  real  spirit  nothing.1 

Another  crushing  weight  upon  Science  and  Literature 
was  the  dominant  pedantry.  The  great  thing  was  to 
write  commentaries  upon  old  thought,  and  diligently  to 
suppress  new  thought.  The  only  language  of  learned 
lecturers  was  a  debased  Latin.  During  the  17th  century 
pedantry  became  a  disease  in  every  country.  In  England 
a  pedant  sat  on  the  throne,  and  Walter  Scott  has 
mirrored  him  in  the  "  Fortunes  of  Nigel. "  In  Italy 
and  Spain  the  same  tendency  prevailed:  the  world  now 
looks  back  upon  it  sometimes  with  abhorrence,  sometimes 
with  contempt,  as  pictured  by  Manzoni  in  the  "Promessi 
Sposi. ' '  In  the  American  colonies  it  injured  all  thinkers ; 
two  of  the  greatest — the  Mathers — it  crippled.  In 
France  there  was  resistance: — Montaigne  had  under- 
mined it,  and  it  was  the  constant  theme  of  his  brightest, 
wit;  Labruyere  presented  it  in  some  of  his  most  ad- 
mirably drawn  pictures;  Moliere,  who  had  occasion  to 
know  and  hate  it,  never  tired  of  holding  it  up  to  ridicule.2 

Bad  as  that  17th-century  pedantry  was  in  France, 
England,  Italy,  and  Spain,  each  of  these  countries  had 
a  literature  of  which  thinking  men  could  be  proud,  and 
a  language  in  which  its  most  learned  men  were  glad 
to  write.  Not  so  in  Germany.  The  language  of  learned 
Germans  had  become  mainly  a  jargon;  their  learning 
owlish ;  their  principal  business  disputation. 

The  same  spirit  was  seen  in  the  whole  political  and 

i  See  Giinther,  Kepler  und  die  Theologie,  Giessen,  1905.  The  ruling  of 
the  Stuttgart  Consistory  is  printed  in  full  on  pp.  125-133. 

2  Doubtless  the  wittiest  example  of  this  ridicule  was  Moliere's  Mariage 
Force. 


120  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

civil  administration.  The  Thirty  Years'  War  had  left 
the  country  in  a  fearful  state;  the  population  of  great 
districts  had  been  nearly  rooted  out ;  powerful  cities  had 
been  reduced  to  a  third  of  their  former  population; 
wealthy  districts  had  been  brought  to  utter  poverty. 
Then,  if  ever,  the  country  needed  good  laws  and  a  wise 
administration.  But  nothing  could  be  worse  than  the 
system  prevailing.  In  its  every  department  pedantry 
and  superstition  were  mingled  in  very  nearly  equal  pro- 
portions ;  everywhere  was  persecution ;  everywhere  trials 
for  witchcraft;  everywhere  criminal  procedure  by  tor- 
ture, though  the  futility  of  torture  had  been  demonstrated 
nearly  two  thousand  years  before. 

The  lower  orders  of  society  had  been  left  by  the  war 
in  a  state  of  barbarism,  and  their  Protestant  leaders, 
while  struggling  with  one  another  on  points  of  dogma, 
found  little,  if  any,  time  to  instruct  their  flocks  in  any- 
thing save  antiquated  catechisms. 

Into  such  a  world,  in  1655,  was  born  Christian 
Thomasius.  The  son  of  a  professor  at  the  University  of 
Leipzig,  his  early  studies,  under  his  father's  direction, 
comprised  nearly  all  the  sciences  then  taught  at  that 
centre  of  learning  and  at  that  of  Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 
in  the  neighboring  Brandenburg,  where  he  learned  re- 
spect for  Calvinists ;  but  he  finally  settled  upon  the  Law 
as  his  profession,  and,  after  having  done  thorough  work 
both  in  study  and  practice,  he  began  lecturing  at  the 
University  where  his  father  had  lectured  before  him,  but 
not  upon  the  same  subject. 

In  order  to  understand  the  work  which  Thomasius  thus 
began,  we  must  review,  briefly,  the  development  of  Inter- 
national Law  just  before  the  time  at  which  he  found  it. 

In  ancient  history,  as  we  have  seen,  we  have  no  great 
treatises  on  the  subject, — no  one  body  of  thought.  We 
have  merely,  here  and  there,  utterances  more  or  less 


TIIOMASIUS  121 

happy  by  leading  thinkers,  and  improvements  in  practice 
by  enlightened  rulers. 

Throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  thanks  to  the  spirit  of 
Christianity,  more  rays  of  justice  and  humanity  shone 
forth;  but  Ecclesiasticism  triumphed  over  Christianity 
by  establishing  the  doctrine  that  ''an  oath  contrary  to 
the  interests  of  the  Church  is  void." 

As  we  go  on  through  that  period,  matters  seem  at 
their  worst.  Such  actions  as  those  of  Pope  Julius  II  re- 
leasing Ferdinand  of  Spain  from  his  treaty  with  France ; 
of  Pope  Clement  V  allowing  the  King  of  France  to  break 
an  inconvenient  oath,  and  violate  a  solemn  treaty;  of 
Pope  Pius  V  destroying  the  sanctity  of  treaties  in  order 
to  revive  civil  war  in  France,  had  seemed  to  tear  out  the 
very  roots  of  International  Law.  But,  bad  as  these  acts 
were,  they  were  followed  by  worse.  The  conduct  of  Pope 
Innocent  X,  denouncing  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia  and 
absolving  its  signers  from  their  oaths,  thus  seeking  to 
perpetuate  the  frightful  religious  wars  which  had  dev- 
astated Germany  for  thirty  and  the  Netherlands  for 
eighty  years ;  this  and  a  host  of  similar  examples,  Prot- 
estant as  well  as  Catholic,  seemed  to  fasten  that  old 
monstrous  system  upon  the  world  forever.  So  far  as 
nations  had  any  views  regarding  their  reciprocal  duties, 
these  were  practically  expressed  in  Machiavelli's  Prince, 
which,  whatever  may  have  been  its  author's  intent,  had 
become  the  gospel  of  State  Scoundrelism.  All  was  a 
seething  cauldron  of  partisan  hostilities,  personal 
hatreds,  and  vile  ambitions — scoundrelism  coming  to  the 
surface  more  evidently  than  all  else.1 

But  under  this  cloud  of  wretchedness  an  evolution  of 

i  For  Innocent  X  and  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia,  see  Gieseler,  Eirchen- 
geschichte,  translated  by  H.  B.  Smith,  vol.  iv,  p.  239,  where  citation  from 
original  sources  is  made.  For  previous  cases  mentioned,  see  Laurent, 
Etudes  sur  VHistoire  de  I'Humanite',  vol.  x,  passim.  For  additional  and 
more  complete  citations,   see  the  preceding  article  on   Grotius. 


122  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

better  thought  had  been  going  on.  Amid  the  mass  of 
mere  dry  lawyers  and  venal  pettifoggers  had  arisen  ju- 
rists, men  who  sought  to  improve  municipal  and  inter- 
national law;  until  finally,  in  1625,  amid  all  the  horrors 
and  atrocities  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  was  published 
at  Paris  the  great  work  of  Grotius — the  Be  Jure  Belli 
ac  Pacis.  This  became  the  foundation  of  modern 
thought  in  that  splendid  province.  "With  perfect  justice 
does  an  eminent  English  authority  of  our  time  declare, 
"It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  no  uninspired  work 
has  more  largely  contributed  to  the  welfare  of  the  Com- 
monwealth of  States;  it  is  a  monument  which  can  only 
perish  with  the  civilized  intercourse  of  nations,  of  which 
it  has  laid  down  the  master  principles  with  a  master's 
hand.  Grotius  first  awakened  the  conscience  of  Govern- 
ments to  the  Christian  sense  of  international  duty."  1  It 
confronted  the  unreason  of  the  world  with  a  vast  array 
of  the  noblest  utterances  of  all  time;  it  enforced  these 
with  genius ;  it  welded  the  whole  mass  of  earlier  ideas, 
thus  enforced,  into  his  own  thought,  and  put  into  the 
hands  of  those  who  followed  him  a  mighty  weapon 
against  the  follies  of  rulers  and  the  cruelties  of  war. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  foregoing  chapter,  that  the  funda- 
mental thought  of  Grotius  was  that  international  law  had 
a  twofold  basis:  first,  the  "Law  of  Nature,"  the  moral 
commands  of  God  to  the  human  family,  as  discerned  by 
right  reason;  secondly,  the  "Law  of  Nations," — or 
' i  Positive  Law, ' ' — the  law  which  results  from  the  actual 
enactments  and  agreements  of  nations,  and  that,  as  be- 
tween these  two  divisions,  his  clear  tendency  was  to  give 
supremacy  to  the  "Law  of  Nature"  and  to  bring  the 
"Law  of  Nations"  more  and  more  into  conformity  with 
this.1 

1  See  Phillimore,  Commentaries  upon  International  Law,  London,  second 
edition,  1871,  preface,  p.  50. 

1  See  Phillimore,  Commentaries  upon  International  Law,  London,  second 


THOMASIUS  123 

The  first  eminent  apostle  of  Grotius  was  Pufendorf, 
who,  in  1672,  published  his  De  Jure  Naturm  et  Gentium. 
He  was  at  once  confronted,  as  Grotius  had  been,  by  a 
large  part  of  the  clergy.  At  that  period  International 
Law,  and,  indeed,  all  law,  was  kept  well  in  hand  by 
theology,  and  theology  discovered  in  the  views  of  these 
new  thinkers,  a  certain  something  which  weakened  sundry 
supposed  foundations  of  law  as  laid  down  in  our  sacred 
books. 

Was  any  attempt  made  to  mitigate  the  horrors  of  war, 
the  Old  Testament  was  cited  to  show  that  the  Almighty 
commanded  the  Jews  in  their  wars  to  be  cruel.  Was  any 
attempt  made  to  mitigate  persecution  for  difference  in 
belief,  the  New  Testament  was  opened  at  the  texts, 
''Compel  them  to  enter  in,"  and  "I  came  not  to  send 
peace,  but  a  sword."  Was  any  attempt  made  to  loosen 
the  shackles  of  serfs,  both  Old  and  New  Testament  were 
opened  to  show  that  slavery  was  of  divine  sanction. 
Was  any  attempt  made  to  stop  the  witchcraft  trials 
which  during  yet  a  century  continued  destroying 
hundreds  of  innocent  persons  in  Germany  every  year,  an 
appeal  was  made  to  the  text,  "Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a 
witch  to  live, ' '  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  to  the  blinding 
of  Elymas  and  the  everlasting  damnation  of  sorcerers, 
in  the  New.  Was  an  attempt  made  to  abolish  torture, 
the  eminently  orthodox  Carpzov  and  his  compeers  cited 
the  detection  of  Achan,  the  lot  which  fell  on  Jonathan,  the 
"inquisition"  made  by  King  Ahasuerus. 

The  teachings  of  Grotius  and  Pufendorf  cut  to  the 
heart  of  all  this,  and  therefore,  as  the  work  of  Grotius 
had  been  placed  on  the  Index  for  Catholics,  the  works  of 
Pufendorf  were  put  under  the  ban  by  a  large  body  of 
Protestants. 

edition,  1871,  preface,  p.  50;  and,  for  the  beginnings  of  the  application  to 
government  of  the  theories  of  natural  law,  Gierke,  Johannes  Althusius 
und  die  Enticicklung  der  naturrechtlichen  Staatstheorien,  Breslau,  1880. 


124  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Into  the  war  thus  begun,  Tho-masms,  faithful  to  the 
views  of  his  teachers,  entered  heartily  by  lecturing 
against  Grotius  and  Pufendorf.  He  himself  tells  us, 
later,  that  he  did  not  at  first  separate  the  questions  of 
legal  philosophy  from  those  of  theology;  that,  in  his 
judgment  at  that  early  period,  to  doubt  the  principles  laid 
down  by  theologians  was  to  risk  damnation;  that,  so 
great  was  his  trust  in  the  authority  of  so  many  excellent 
men,  he  would  have  exposed  himself  to  the  charge  of 
ignorance  sooner  than  to  the  slightest  suspicion  of 
separating  himself  from  the  dominant  teaching.1 

But  there  came  in  his  thinking  a  great  change.  With 
that  impartiality  which  is  one  of  the  rarest  virtues  in 
strong  men,  he  studied  carefully  the  writings  of  his 
adversary  and  was  converted  by  him;  and,  having  been 
converted,  felt  it  a  duty  to  be  even  more  earnest  in  sup- 
porting than  he  had  been  in  opposing  him.  More  than 
this,  he  thereby  learned  the  great  lesson  of  relying  upon 
his  own  powers.  He  declares,  "I  now  saw  that  any  being 
gifted  by  God  with  reason  sins  against  the  goodness  of 

i  See  Biedermann,  Deutschland  im  Achtzclmten  Jahrhundert,  vol.  ii,  p. 
349,  Leipzig,  1880.  For  excellent  accounts  of  the  relative  position  of 
Grotius,  Pufendorf,  and  Thomasius,  see  Heffter,  Droit  International, 
troisieme  edition,  1875,  par.  10;  also  Phillimore,  Commentaries  on  Interna- 
tional Law,  second  edition,  London,  1871,  p.  50;  also  Wheaton,  Elements 
of  International  Law,  introduction;  Woolsey,  International  Law,  introduc- 
tion, and  appendix  I;  for  extended  and  interesting  accounts  of  the  his- 
torical development,  see  Wheaton,  Ilistoire  du  Progrcs  du  Droit  des  Gens, 
introduction  and  first  chapters.  And,  for  a  close  discussion  of  the  main 
points  involved,  see  Franck,  Rcformateurs  et  Puhlicistes  de  V Europe,  Dix- 
septieme  Steele,  Paris,  1881,  chap.  iii.  For  excellent  brief  summaries,  see 
Walker,  History  of  the  Law  of  Nations,  Cambridge  (England),  1S99, 
vol.  i,  pp.  162-1G4,  and  D.  J.  Hill,  introduction  to  Campbell's  translation 
of  the  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pads,  Washington,  1901;  also  the  History  of 
European  Diplomacy,  by  the  same  author.  For  the  interesting  personal 
relations  which  were  developed  between  Pufendorf  and  Thomasius,  see 
Gigas,  Briefe  Pufendorf s  und  Thomasius,  Leipzig,  1897;  this  work  con- 
tains thirty-four  letters  hitherto  unpublished,  lately  discovered  in  the 
Royal  Library  at  Copenhagen, — only  five  others  having  been  previously 
known. 


THOMASIUS  125 

his  Creator  when  he  allows  himself  to  be  led  like  an 
ox  by  any  other  human  being";  and  he  adds,  "I  deter- 
mined to  shut  my  eyes  against  the  brightness  of  human 
authority,  and  to  give  no  more  thought  to  the  question, 
who  supports  any  doctrine ;  but  only  to  weigh  fairly  the 
grounds  for  and  against  it." 

The  earlier  views  of  the  young  instructor  had  been 
well  received ;  but,  as  he  developed  these  later  ideas,  his 
audiences  became  alarmed  and  "before  long,"  as  he  tells 
us,  "I  was  left  alone  in  my  lecture  room  with  my 
Grotius." 

Yet  he  was  not  discouraged.  Having  given  two  years 
to  study,  thought,  and  travel,  he  began  again,  and  now 
drew  large  audiences.  The  inert  mass  of  German  law 
began  under  his  hands  to  throb  with  a  new  life.1 

At  first  his  zeal  and  ability  carried  all  before  him,  and 
despite  the  grumblings  of  his  opponents  he  was  in  1685 
admitted  to  membership  in  the  learned  society  which 
edited  the  literary  journal  of  the  University — the  Acta 
Eruditorum. 

But  matters  became  speedily  worse  for  him.  The 
young  instructor's  facility  in  lecturing  and  publishing 
was  as  great  as  his  zeal,  and  his  every  book  and  every 
lecture  aroused  new  distrust  in  the  older  race  of  theolo- 
gians and  jurists.  Enemies  beset  him  on  all  sides ;  now 
and  then  skirmishes  were  won  against  him,  resulting  in 
condemnation  of  this  or  that  book  or  prohibition  of  this 
or  that  course  of  lectures. 

But  for  his  real  genius  he  would  have  lost  the  battle 
entirely.  He  committed  errors  in  taste,  errors  in  tact, 
errors  in  statement,  errors  in  method,  more  than  enough 
to  ruin  a  man  simply  of  great  talent;  but  he  was  pos- 
sessed of  more  than  talent,  of  more  than  genius.    For 

i  For  interesting  details  of  Thomasius'  struggle  against  the  ideas  of 
Pufendorf  and  of  his  final  conversion  to  them,  see  Stintzing  and  Lands- 
berg,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Rechtsicissenschaft,  part  ii,  chap.  iii. 


126  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

there  was  in  him  a  deep,  earnest  purpose,  a  force  which 
obstacles  only  increased;  and  so,  as  preparatory  to  his 
lectures  of  1687-8  came  the  startling  announcement  that 
they  were  to  be  in  the  spoken  language  of  his  country. 
This  brought  on  a  crisis.  To  his  enemies  it  seemed  insult 
added  to  injury.  Heretofore  Thomasius  had  developed 
the  ideas  of  Grotius  and  Puf endorf ;  this  was  bad  enough ; 
but  now  his  opponents  declared  that  he  purposed  to 
disgrace  the  University  and  degrade  the  Faculty.  In 
vain  did  Thomasius  take  pains  to  make  his  views  under- 
stood. In  vain  did  he  admit  the  worth  of  Greek  and 
Latin  to  those  aiming  at  ripe  scholarship ;  in  vain  did  he 
show  the  great  advantages  which  France  had  reaped  from 
the  cultivation  of  her  own  language ;  in  vain  did  he  show 
that  through  the  modern  languages  those  aiming  only  at 
a  practical  career  could  be  given  a  far  wider  and  more 
useful  education  than  through  a  tongue  which  they  could 
never  know  with  thoroughness;  that  a  flexible  modern 
language  is  the  best  medium  in  which  new  thought  can  be 
developed — all  in  vain.1 

The  opposition  became  more  and  more  determined ;  but 
he  stood  none  the  less  firmly.  More  and  more  he  labored 
to  clear  away  barbarisms  and  to  bring  in  a  better 
philosophy;  and,  while  he  continued  to  deliver  some  of 
his  lectures  and  write  some  of  his  books  in  Latin,  he  per- 
sisted in  using  German  in  those  lectures  and  books  which 

i  This  opening  lecture  of  Thomasius  (the  "programme"  which  served 
as  an  announcement  of  his  course)  was  reprinted  by  himself  in  1701,  and 
has  again  been  reprinted  in  our  day,  under  the  title  of  "Christian 
Thomasius  on  the  Imitation  of  the  French,"  as  No.  1  of  the  new  series 
of  Deutsche  Litteraturdenlcmale,  Stuttgart,  1894. 

For  a  striking  example  of  his  errors  in  taste  and  method,  see  the  very 
curious  and  comical  statement  of  a  speech  before  the  professors  and 
students  of  Halle  in  1694,  in  Tholuck,  Yorgeschichte  des  Rationalismus, — 
second  part,  Das  kirchliche  Leben  des  Siebzehntcn  Jahrhunderts, — Berlin, 
1861,  part  ii,  pp.  71  et  seq.;  and  for  other  examples,  see  pages  following. 
For  an  open  confession  of  what  he  considered  his  own  too  great  indul- 
gence in  cutting  speech,  see  especially  p.  72.  For  complaints  by  others 
against  his  too  great  sharpness  and  severity,  see  pp.  74   et  seq. 


THOMASIUS  127 

•appealed  to  his  audiences  more  directly  and  fully.  This 
brought  more  and  more  intrigues,  more  and  more 
pressure;  every  sort  of  authority,  lay  and  ecclesiastic, 
was  besought  to  remove  him. 

As  we  have  seen,  he  had  been  one  of  the  editors  of  a 
Latin  literary  journal;  he  now  established  a  literary 
journal  in  German, — the  first  of  any  real  value  ever 
known.  Thomasius  was  the  first  to  found  a  German 
literary  journal  in  any  true  sense  of  the  word.1 

Not  only  did  he  give  up  the  old  language  of  literary 
-criticism,  but  he  relinquished  its  old  paths.  The  time- 
honored  methods  in  criticism  were  simple.  They  were 
largely  those  of  a  mutual  admiration  society — each  pro- 
fessor sounding  in  sonorous  Latin  the  glories  of  his  sect 
or  his  clique,  and  showing  in  pungent  Latin  the  futility 
of  all  others.  With  all  such  Thomasius  made  havoc; 
discussed  the  works  of  his  colleagues  and  of  others  im- 
partially; asked  no  favors  and  showed  none.  He  was 
the  sworn  foe  of  intolerance,  of  abuses  rooted  in  preju- 
dice, of  all  mere  formulas  and  learned  jargon. 

Nor  did  he  confine  himself  to  that  easiest  and  cheapest 
of  all  things — destructive  criticism;  he  determined  not 
merely  to  criticise,  but  to  create, — not  merely  to  destroy, 
but  to  build ;  he  showed,  distinctly,  power  to  develop  new 
good  things  in  place  of  old  bad  things. 

This  work  of  his,  then,  apparently  revolutionary,  was 
really  evolutionary:  he  opened  German  literature  to  the 
influences  of  its  best  environment;  he  stripped  oif  its 
thick,  tough  coatings  and  accretions  of  pedantry, 
sophistry,  bigotry,  and  conventionalism,  and  brought  it 
into  clean  and  stimulating  contact  with  the  best  life  of 
Germany  and  of  Europe. 

i  For  a  brief  but  excellent  statement  of  tbe  relation  of  tbis  new 
journalism  to  the  advancement  of  German  thought,  see  Kuno  Francke, 
Social  Forces  in  German  Literature,  p.  176  (note).  For  a  fuller  treat- 
ment, see  Prutz,  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Journalismus,  and  the  histories 
of  German  literature  by  Hettner  and  Julian  Schmidt. 


128  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

While  opposing  the  unfit  use  of  the  ancient  languages, 
he  never  ceased  efforts  to  improve  his  own  language. 
Luther  had,  indeed,  given  it  a  noble  form  by  his  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible;  but  pedantry  was  still  too  powerful: 
the  vernacular  was  despised.  All  care  was  given  to 
Latin.  At  sundry  schools  of  high  repute  children  were 
not  only  trained  to  speak  Latin,  but  whipped  if  they  spoke 
anything  else.  Learned  schoolmasters  considered  it 
disgraceful  to  speak  their  own  language,  or  to  allow  their 
pupils  to  speak  it.  The  result  was  that  the  German 
language  had  become  a  jargon.  Even  Thomasius  himself 
never  fully  freed  his  style  from  the  influence  of  his  early 
teachers:  much  as  he  did  to  improve  German  literature 
by  calling  attention  to  the  more  lucid  French  models,  he 
never  could  entirely  shake  off  the  old  shackles.1 

Nor  less  striking  were  his  efforts  in  behalf  of  a  better 
system  of  instruction.  He  insisted  that  so  much  useless 
matter  was  crammed  into  scholars '  minds  that  there  was 
little  place  for  things  of  real  value.  He  urged  the 
authorities  to  give  up  the  debased  Aristotelianism  still 
dominant,  quickened  thought  on  subjects  of  living 
interest,  and  declared  that  "the  logic  of  the  schools  is  as 
useless  in  prying  into  truth  as  a  straw  in  overturning  a 
rock. ' ' 2 

The  evil  was  deep-seated.  Candidates  for  degrees  in 
his  time  discussed  such  subjects  as  the  weight  of  the 
grape  clusters  which  the  spies  brought  out  of  the  prom- 
ised land;  one  professor  lectured  twenty-four  years  on 
the  first  chapter  of  Isaiah;  another  lectured  an  equal 
time  on  the  first  ten  chapters  of  Jeremiah;  still  another 
gave  thirteen  years  to  an  explanation  of  the  Psalms; 

i  See  curious  examples  in  Raumer,  Gcschichte  der  PadagogUc,  cited 
in  Klemperer.  On  the  general  change  from  Latin  to  French  in  intercourse 
between  nations,  see  Paulsen,  Die  Deutschen  Universitatcn,  pp.  47,  48. 

2  As  to  Thomasius'  plan  to  give  something  better  than  the  usual  sub- 
jects of  study,  see  Dernburg,  Thomasius  und  die  Utiftung  der  Univcrsitat 
Halle,  pp.  8  et  seq. 


THOMASIUS  129 

Gesner,  the  philologist,  tells  of  another  who  devoted  four 
lecture-hours  to  one  word  in  Aristotle's  "Khetoric."  * 

To  all  the  objections  of  Thoinasius  against  this  sort 
of  learning,  his  opponents  made  easy  answer: — that  his 
arguments  were  shallow,  and  he  himself  a  charlatan. 
But  he  committed  still  another  crime.  Spener  having 
continued  his  efforts  to  bring  peace  between  the  warring 
factions  in  the  Church  and  to  arouse  Christian  effort, 
Thomasius  defended  him,  made  common  cause  with 
him,  and,  indeed,  for  a  considerable  time,  became 
milder  in  character  and  utterance.  Hence  it  was 
that,  though  for  his  views  on  the  source  of  public 
law  he  had  been  called  an  "Atheist,"  he  was  now  stig- 
matized as  a  "Pietist." 

And  soon  came  another  charge,  even  worse.  A  Danish 
Court  Preacher,  Masius,  had  put  forth  a  treatise  to  prove 
Lutheranism  the  form  of  religion  most  favorable  to 
princely  power;  most  clear  in  teaching  the  divine 
authority  of  princely  government,  the  necessity  of 
passive  obedience  on  the  part  of  the  governed,  the  abso- 
lute authority  conferred  on  government  directly  from 
God,  and  without  any  necessary  consent  of  the  people. 
No  argument  could  appeal  more  strongly  to  the  multitude 
of  princelings,  great  and  small,  who  then  ruled  every 
corner  of  Germany.  These  statements  and  arguments, 
Thomasius,  in  the  regular  course  of  his  work  as  Professor 
and  Journalist,  brought  under  criticism ;  stigmatized  them 
as  attempts  to  curry  favor  with  the  ruling  class;  and 
finally  declared  that,  although  the  powers  that  be  are 
ordained  of  God,  various  rights  on  the  part  of  the 
governed  must  be  supposed.  This  threw  the  opposing 
theologians  and  jurists  into  new  spasms.  They  had  pre- 
viously, without  much  regard  for  consistency,  declared 
Thomasius  guilty  of  atheism  and  pietism;  they  now  de- 

1  See  citations  from  Tholuek  and  others  in  the  admirable  summary  of 
Klemperer. 
9 


130  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

clared  him  guilty  of  disrespect  to  majesty:  the  Danish 
Government  made  a  solemn  complaint  to  the  Government 
of  Saxony ;  and  his  book  was  burned  by  a  Danish  hang- 
man, while  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  the  palace  clique,  and 
the  authorities  of  the  Church  at  Dresden,  were  more 
loudly  than  ever  besought  to  remove  him. 

Against  all  this  he  stood  firm.  But  at  last  fortune 
seemed  to  desert  him.  His  love  of  justice  plunged  him 
into  apparent  ruin.  The  Duke  of  Sachsen-Zeitz  had 
chosen  to  marry  a  daughter  of  the  Elector  of  Branden- 
burg. The  reasons  for  the  marriage  were  many  and 
weighty.  The  alliance  was  a  happy  one  for  the  two 
states,  and  the  Prince  and  Princess  loved  each  other; 
but  Saxony  was  Lutheran,  and  Brandenburg  Calvinistic: 
the  marriage  was,  therefore,  denounced  from  the  leading 
Lutheran  pulpits.  Against  these  Thomasius  began  an- 
other struggle.  On  grounds  of  simple  justice,  of  public 
right,  and  of  opposition  to  intolerance  he  defended  the 
marriage.  This  angered  the  Saxon  Court  and  brought 
fresh  complaint  from  his  theologic  colleagues  at  Leipsic. 
The  other  great  Saxon  university,  at  Wittenberg,  was. 
not  less  indignant,  and  was  further  angered  by  his  ex- 
posure of  a  gross  misstatement  by  one  of  its  great  Lu- 
theran theologians  regarding  the  Calvinist  teaching.  The 
two  Faculties  vied  in  denouncing  him  to  the  authorities. 
This  led  to  a  catastrophe :  he  was  forbidden  until  further 
orders  to  lecture  either  in  public  or  in  private  or  to  print 
anything  whatsoever,  and  a  warrant  was  issued  for  his 
arrest.  Deprived  thus  of  all  his  means  of  support,  and 
with  his  family  looking  to  him  for  bread,  he  did  not 
await  the  service  of  the  warrant:  baffling  his  foes  by 
his  very  boldness,  he  shook  from  his  feet  forever  the 
dust  of  Saxony  and  sought  refuge  at  the  capital  of  the 
Elector  of  Brandenburg. 

Thus,  in  1690,  apparently  ended  all  his  opportunities 
to  better  his  country.    At  the  age  of  thirty-five  years,  he' 


THOMASIUS  131 

saw  his  enemies  triumphant ; — every  cause  for  which  he 
had  struggled  apparently  lost; — himself  considered, 
among  friends,  and  enemies  alike,  as  ruined,  discredited, 
and  ridiculous.1 

i  As  to  all  this,  see  Thomasius'  own  account,  appended  to  his  Das  Recht 
evungelischer  Fiirstcn  in  theologischen  Streitigkeiten,  Halle,  1696,  and  his 
yet  fuller  narratives  in  his  Juristische  Handel,  ii  (Halle,  1721),  pp.  1-167, 
and  in  his  Gemischte  Handel,  ii  (Halle,  1723),  pp.  44-558;  iii,  625-768. 


II 

AS  we  have  seen,  Thomasius  had  been  driven,  under 
a  serious  charge,  from  a  leading  chair  in  a  re- 
nowned university,  to  seek  whatever  chance  might  offer 
in  a  town  comparatively  unimportant. 

To  his  contemporaries,  clearly  viewing  the  whole  field, 
the  future  of  his  reforms,  as  well  as  his  own  personal 
prospects,  must  have  seemed  poor  indeed.  And  yet,  to 
us,  looking  along  that  chain  of  cause  and  effect  which 
spans  the  abyss  separating  the  American  civilization  of 
the  twentieth  century  from  the  German  civilization  of  the 
seventeenth,  it  is  now  clear  that  this  catastrophe  was  but 
a  prelude  to  that  great  series  of  victories  for  justice, 
right  reason,  and  mercy,  which  have  brought  vast  bless- 
ings to  his  country  and  to  humanity. 

There  was  at  Halle  what  was  known  as  a  "Ritter- 
schule":  an  intermediate  academy  for  young  nobles.  It 
seemed  but  a  dull  centre  of  thought  as  compared  with  that 
which  Thomasius  had  left,  but  he  took  service  in  it,  and 
began  a  new  career  even  more  strenuous  than  the  old. 
Discouraging  prophecies  were  many,  but  all  were  soon 
brought  to  naught;  the  best  of  his  old  Leipsic  students 
followed  him ;  others  flocked  in  from  other  parts  of  Ger- 
many, and  soon  he  was  more  influential  than  ever :  speak- 
ing to  larger  audiences  and  taking  stronger  hold. 

The  sovereign  under  whom  he  had  thus  taken  refuge 
was  the  Elector  Frederick  III  of  Brandenburg,  who 
afterward  made  himself  the  first  king  of  Prussia:  thus 
beginning  that  line  of  monarchs  which  has  since  won  the 
sovereignty  of  the  present  German  Empire. 

The  Elector  saw  his  opportunity.  True  to  those  same 
instincts  which  have  made  the  Hohenzollerns  the  ruling 

132 


THOMASIUS  133 

family  in  Europe,  true  to  the  policy  which  led  King 
Frederick  "William  III,  after  his  defeat  by  the  first  Napo- 
leon, to  establish  the  University  of  Berlin,  and  the  Em- 
peror William  I,  after  his  victory  over  the  third  Napoleon, 
to  reestablish  the  University  of  Strasburg,  Frederick  III, 
in  1694,  made  the  Academy  of  Halle  a  university,  gave  it 
a  strong  faculty,  named  Thomasius  a  full  professor  in  it, 
and  a  few  years  later  placed  him  at  its  head. 

The  new  institution  was  at  once  attacked  from  all  sides, 
and  especially  by  its  elder  sisters.  Intrigues  were  set 
on  foot  to  induce  the  Emperor  at  Vienna  to  abolish  it. 
Every  attempt  was  made  to  stir  sectarian  hate  against 
it.  A  favorite  reference  to  it  among  its  enemies  was  a 
play  upon  words :  naming  it  the  University  of  Hell 
(Holle),  and  alluding  to  it  as  "ein  hollisches  Institut."  x 

But  these  attacks  helped  Thomasius 's  work  rather  than 
hurt  it.  To  understand  the  causes  and  results  of  such 
attacks  an  American  in  these  days  has  only  to  recall  the 
articles  in  very  many  sectarian  newspapers  and  the  ser- 
mons in  numberless  sectarian  pulpits  during  the  middle 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century  against  Cornell  Univer- 
sity and  the  State  Universities  of  our  Western  common- 
wealths ;  very  good  examples  may  also  be  seen  to-day  in 
similar  diatribes  upholding  the  sectarian  colleges  of  vari- 
ous Southern  States  against  their  state  universities.  But 
in  that,  as  in  more  recent  cases,  the  Darwinian  theory 
seemed  to  apply:  for,  while  these  diatribes  kept  many 
sons  of  timid  parents  away  from  Halle,  there  seemed  a 
survival  of  the  fittest :  the  more  independent  and  thought- 
ful youth  flocked  to  Thomasius 's  lecture-room  in  ever 
increasing  numbers.  Erelong,  his  university  rivaled 
Leipzig  and  Wittenberg,  and  became  a  leading  centre  of 
German  thought.  It  became  almost  what  Wittenberg  had 
been  in  the  days  of  Luther.     Well  has  Thomasius  been 

i  See  Dernburg,  pp.  23  et  seq.;  also  Guericke  and  others  cited  by  Klem- 
perer. 


134  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

called  by  an  eminent  authority  "the  cornerstone  of  the 
new  university, ' '  for  during  forty  years  his  spirit  was  its 
main  inspiration.1 

The  basis  of  all  his  teaching  was  his  development  of 
the  ideas  of  Grotius  and  Puf endorf :  making  law  an  evolu- 
tion of  right  reason  as  against  that  survival  of  mediaeval 
ideas  which  mainly  promoted  conformity  with  the  letter 
of  the  sacred  books  and  especially  with  the  laws  of  Moses. 
But  this  was  by  no  means  all.  More  and  more  he  strove 
to  bring  order  out  of  chaos.  The  main  material  of  law 
as  then  presented  in  Germany  was  an  incoherent  mass 
drawn  not  only  from  the  Bible,  but  from  the  Roman  Law, 
the  Canon  Law,  and  from  decisions,  glosses,  notions, 
whimsies, — of  authorities  here,  there,  and  everywhere, 
often  irreconcilable, — the  breeding-ground  of  pedantry 
and  the  happy  hunting-ground  of  venal  ingenuity. 

The  spirit  which  permeated  the  teaching  of  Thoma- 
sius  gave  him  a  special  power.  The  foremost  pur- 
pose of  his  predecessors  and  rivals  was  the  main- 
tenance of  dogma;  their  principal  means  being  hair- 
splitting definitions,  distinctions,  subtleties,  and  ped- 
antries. Through  all  these  the  young  professor  broke 
boldly.  His  evident  ambition  was  to  distinguish  him- 
self, not  by  buttressing  outworn  beliefs,  but  by  in- 
fusing into  the  younger  generation  a  love  for  truth; — 
a  straightforward  use  of  right  reason  in  seeking  it  and 
a  manly  courage  in  defending  it.  His  clear  purpose  was 
to  give  his  country  deeper  foundations  of  justice,  and  on 
these  to  begin  a  better  superstructure  of  law.  He  was  by 
no  means  contemptuous  of  ancient  sources.  If  right  rea- 
son was  embodied  in  an  Old  or  New  Testament  declara- 
tion, or  in  a  Roman  code,  or  in  the  decision  of  a  mediaeval 

i  For  the  hard  names  hurled  at  the  new  institution,  and  for  the  reasons 
which  led  parents  to  send  their  sons  to  it,  in  spite  of  these  attacks,  see 
Ludewig's  history  of  the  founding  of  the  University  of  Halle,  prefixed  to 
the  second  volume  of  his  Consilia  Hallensium  Jurisconsultorum,  Halle, 
1734 — especially  pp.  44  ff. 


THOMASIUS  135 

court,  or  in  the  better  thought  of  a  contemporary  pedant, 
he  was  glad  to  make  use  of  it ;  but  he  was,  of  all  things,  and 
in  the  highest  sense,  practical :  anxious  to  set  men,  not  at 
spinning  new  theories  to  cover  old  abuses,  but  at  think- 
ing out  better  theories  and  working  out  better  practice. 
So  vigorous  a  teacher  was  a  marvel  in  that  age  of  pedantry. 
He  dressed  like  a  man  of  the  world,  and  lectured  to  his 
students  as  if  he  were  chatting  with  them.  He  encour- 
aged them  to  interrupt  him  with  questions.  He  depre- 
cated their  taking  of  notes — he  had  noticed,  he  said,  that 
the  most  industrious  note-takers  were  often  the  poorest 
listeners:  they  took  down  things  which  had  never  en- 
tered his  head ;  and,  satisfied  with  their  notes,  they  gave 
the  subject  no  thought  or  study  of  their  own.  Instead  he 
gave  them  printed  outlines  of  his  lectures — terse  and 
pithy  summaries,  the  " kernel  and  basis,"  as  he  said,  of 
his  teaching — and,  with  these  in  his  own  hands  as  well  as 
in  his  students ',  he  made  the  rest  of  his  work  extempore. 
He  threw  open  to  his  students  his  home  and  cultivated 
their  personal  acquaintance.  Yet  he  would  have  no  ab- 
ject disciples:  they  must  be  independent  even  of  him — 
he  wanted  no  "Thomasites,"  he  said. 

Amazing  was  the  ground  he  covered.  What  the  ped- 
ants had  dawdled  over  for  months  he  despatched  in  a 
week.  Yet  he  found  time  for  excursions  into  every  field 
of  practical  interest — Manners,  Morals,  Politics,  Econom- 
ics. Long  before  Halle,  at  his  instance,  established  the 
first  chair  of  Economics  and  Administration  and  entered 
consciously  on  the  career  which  has  long  made  it  so  pre- 
eminent a  school  for  students  of  government,  he  was 
teaching  there  the  elements  of  all  the  political  sciences. 
But,  above  all,  he  tempered  everything  with  History. 
To  him  things  were  intelligible  only  in  their  historical 
growth  and  their  setting;  and,  following  the  best  tradi- 
tion of  the  great  sixteenth-century  jurists,  he  made  his 
courses  in  Law  courses  also  in  History — national,  eccle- 


136  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

siastical,  universal.  Thus  far,  in  the  universities,  History, 
if  taught  at  all,  had  been  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  theolo- 
gians,— set  forth,  with  Daniel 's  interpretation  of  the  vision 
of  Nebuchadnezzar  as  an  outline,  to  illustrate  the  divine 
government  of  the  world  or  demonstrate  some  scheme  of 
redemption.  Thomasius  freed  it  from  its  supernatural 
background,  made  its  theme  the  affairs  of  states  and  of 
society,  and  showed  its  use  as  a  discipline  for  practical 
men.  His  pithy  summaries  strayed  far  beyond  his  class- 
room. A  generation  later  Frederick  the  Great  still  urged 
that  History  be  studied  with  the  outlines  of  Thomasius.1 

The  main  result  of  all  this  was  soon  seen  in  the  new 
sort  of  professional  men  who  went  forth  from  Halle. 
That  University  became,  under  his  direction,  the  training 
school  for  the  state  officials  of  Prussia.  Instead  of  ped- 
ants discoursing  endlessly  in  wretched  Latin  on  the  weight 
of  the  grapes  of  Eshcol,  or  on  the  meaning  of  this  or 
that  word  in  Aristotle,  or  on  the  sin  of  "syncretism"  and 
the  like,  we  find  men  under  his  guidance  learning  to  think 
upon  municipal  and  international  law,  on  public  economy, 
on  state  administration,  and,  none  the  less  for  all  of  this, 
on  a  new  and  nobler  literature.  No  wonder  that  Paulsen, 
the  eminent  historian  of  German  higher  education,  calls 
Halle  "the  first  really  modern  university." 

As  the  years  went  on,  increasing  numbers  of  young  men 
were  sent  out  from  this  seat  of  learning  to  lay  foundations 

i  For  the  work  of  Thomasius  as  a  teacher,  see  not  only  the  books  of  Lude- 
wig  and  Dernburg  already  cited,  and  the  great  history  of  the  University 
of  Halle  by  Schrader  (Halle,  1894),  but  Paulsen's  Geschichte  des  gelehrten 
Unterrichts,  and  especially  an  article  in  the  Preussische  Jahrbiicher  (vol. 
cxiv,  1903),  by  Schiele,  Aus  dem  Thomasischen  Collegio.  A  set  of  the 
printed  outlines  of  Thomasius — that  for  his  course  on  the  History  of 
German  Law  (we  should  call  it  Constitutional  History) — may  be  seen  in 
the  library  of  Cornell  University.  Especially  rich  in  detail  as  to  the 
teaching  of  Thomasius  is  an  address  by  Frensdorff  on  Halle  und  Gbttingen 
(Giittingen,  1894)  ;  and  a  study  of  the  same  year  by  Rauch,  Thomasius 
als  Oast  in  Erhard  WcigeVs  Schule  zu  Jena  (printed  in  the  Symbola 
Doctorum  Jenensis  Gymnasii  in  honorem  Gymnasii  Isenace7isis) ,  shows  his 
warm  interest  in  secondary  as  well  as  in  higher  education. 


THOMASIUS  137 

for  Prussian  administration,  and  thus  to  prepare  the 
ground  for  the  House  of  Hohenzollern,  and  for  the  present 
German  Empire.1 

Nor  did  science,  literature,  or  theology  suffer.  Better 
progress  was  made  in  each  of  these.  Into  every  one  of 
these  fields  great  men  went  forth  from  the  new  university, 
especially  into  theology.  Such  men  in  our  own  day,  from 
Tholuck  and  Julius  Miiller  to  Harnack  and  Pfleiderer, — 
who  have  been  and  are  leaders  of  religious  thought  in 
Germany,  and  indeed  throughout  Christendom, — are  the 
legitimate  results  of  Thomasius's  influence:  without  him, 
so  far  as  we  can  now  see,  they  would  have  been  impossible. 

But,  while  thus  building  up  his  department  and  the 
University,  he  did  not  forget  his  duty  to  the  German 
people  at  large.  He  ceased,  indeed,  to  publish  his  literary 
journal ;  but  this  was  only  that  he  might  give  all  his  time 
to  works  of  greater  importance.  He  never  forgot  that  his 
main  effort  must  be  to  lay  better  foundations  of  principle, 
to  bring  in  better  modes  of  thought,  and  to  stimulate  a 
more  practical  performance  of  duty.  In  1691  was  pub- 
lished his  Doctrine  of  Common  Sense;  in  1692,  his  Doc- 
trine of  Morals;  and,  after  a  number  of  other  treatises 
designed  to  uplift  the  character  and  conduct  of  the  whole 
nation,  appeared,  in  1705,  his  work  on  Natural  and  Inter- 
national Law. 

Yet  all  this  was  but  a  part  of  his  activity.  While  doing 
university  work,  and  writing  treatises,  learned  and  popu- 
lar, he  plunged  more  and  more  into  great  living  ques- 
tions,— the  greatest  on  which  any  man  of  his  time  could 
be  engaged,  and  in  which  he  rendered  more  direct  service 
to  mankind  than  did  any  other  German  between  Luther 
and  Lessing. 

First  of  these  was  the  belief  in"  witchceaft.     To  un- 

1  For  an  excellent  summary  of  the  services  rendered  by  Thomasius  to 
German  literature  and  to  the  House  of  Hohenzollern,  see  Julian  Schmidt, 
Bilder  aus  dem  Geistigen  Leben,  Leipzig,  1870,  vol.  i,  pp.  42,  et  seq. 


138  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

derstand  tlie  work  of  Thomasius  toward  finally  destroy- 
ing a  growth  so  widespread,  so  noxious,  and  so  tenacious 
of  life,  we  must  look  back  over  its  history. 

Its  roots  ran  deep  into  the  earlier  strata  of  human  civ- 
ilization, and  especially  into  the  mythologies  and  theolo- 
gies of  Babylonia,  Persia,  Judea,  Rome,  and  the  rude 
tribes  of  early  Europe.  In  the  early  days  of  Christianity 
a  rank  growth  had  come  from  sundry  passages  in  our  own 
sacred  books ;  above  all  from  the  command  in  the  Mosaic 
law,  "Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live,"  and  from 
the  declaration  in  the  Psalms  that  "All  the  gods  of  the 
heathen  are  devils."  * 

Various  great  fathers  and  doctors  of  the  Church,  with 
St.  Augustine,  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  and  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  at  their  head,  strengthened  this  growth,  and  it 
was  more  and  more  bound  on  the  consciences  of  the 
faithful  by  various  pronouncements  of  the  infallible  head 
of  Christendom. 

First  among  these  may  be  noted  the  bull  Super  illius 
specula,  issued  in  1326  by  Pope  John  XXII.  In  this 
solemn  utterance,  addressed  to  the  universal  Church  and 
to  all  future  times,  the  Holy  Father  grieves  at  the  in- 
crease of  those  who  make  a  pact  with  hell  and  pay  wor- 
ship to  demons,  shutting  up  devils  in  finger-rings  and 
mirrors  and  phials  that  they  may  extort  their  aid,  and 
making  waxen  images  of  their  fellow  Christians  in  order 
to  bewitch  them.  Pope  John  believed  that  his  own  life 
had  thus  been  attempted  by  piercing  a  waxen  image  of 
him  with  needles;  and  not  only  in  this  bull  but  in  brief 
after  brief  to  bishop  and  inquisitor  he  urged  the  prosecu- 
tion and  extirpation  of  these  miscreants  by  all  the  penal- 
ties prescribed  for  heresy. 

i  So  Psalm  xcvi,  5,  was  translated  by  the  Vulgate  and  by  nil  tlie  early 
versions;  and  so  the  early  Christian  church  unquestioningly  believed,  as  is 
clear,  for  example,  from  I.  Cor.,  x,  20,  21:  "The  things  which  the  Gentiles 
sacrifice,  they  sacrifice  to  devils,"  etc. 


THOMASIUS  139 

His  successors  shared  his  alarm,  and  in  1437  Pope 
Eugene  IV  addressed  a  general  letter  to  all  the  inquisi- 
tors, recapitulating  for  them  the  horrid  deeds  of  the 
witches  and  how  by  mere  word  or  touch  or  sign  they 
can  bewitch  whom  they  will,  inflict  or  cure  disease,  or  call 
down  storms,  and  exhorting  the  guardians  of  the  Holy 
Faith  to  greater  rigor,  even  though  it  should  be  neces- 
sary to  enlist  the  aid  of  the  secular  power.  Such  utter- 
ances, issued,  as  devout  Christians  believed,  under  the 
infallible  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  led  to  new  carni- 
vals of  judicial  murder  in  various  parts  of  Europe ;  but 
it  was  left  to  Pope  Innocent  VIII  to  lend  the  culminat- 
ing sanction  of  the  Church  both  to  the  superstition  and 
to  the  cruelty  of  the  witch-persecution.  The  inquisitors 
commissioned  for  Germany  found  in  many  quarters  of 
that  rational  and  liberty-loving  land,  both  lay  and  cler- 
ical, a  slowness  to  accept  either  their  startling  teaching 
or  their  summary  procedure.  Turning,  therefore,  to 
Pope  Innocent,  they  won  from  him,  in  1484,  the  famous 
bull  Summis  desider antes,  which,  of  all  edicts  ever  sent 
forth  under  Paganism  or  Christianity,  has  doubtless 
caused  the  most  unlimited  cruelty  and  the  most  profuse 
shedding  of  innocent  blood.  Setting  forth  at  much 
length  and  in  hideous  detail  the  orgies  of  crime  in  which 
throughout  Germany  men  and  women  sold  to  Satan  were 
revelling,  it  empowered  the  inquisitors  to  proceed,  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  of  those  who  "think  of  them- 
selves more  highly  than  they  ought  to  think,"  with  all 
the  authority  of  the  Church,  and  instructed  the  Bishop 
of  Strasburg  to  put  down  by  force  any  attempt  to  hinder 
or  annoy  them,  authorizing  them  to  use,  where  neces- 
sary, excommunication  and  interdict  or  to  call  in  the  help 
of  the  State.1 

i  As  to  these  papal  utterances,  see  especially  Hansen,  Zauberwahn,  In- 
quisition und  Hexenprozess  im  Mittelalter;  and,  for  the  text  of  the  docu- 
ments, his  Quellen  und  Untersuchungen  zur  Geschichte  des  Hexentnahvs. 


140  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Even  thus  equipped  the  inquisitors  were  not  content. 
They  now  set  themselves  at  compiling  a  code  of  witch- 
persecution  which  should  leave  no  excuse  for  delay  or 
laxity.  They  called  it  "Malleus  Maleficarum," — "The 
Witch  Hammer."  At  the  head  of  it,  to  give  it  authority, 
they  printed  the  papal  bull,  and  to  the  bull  they  added  a 
writ  of  approval  from  the  Emperor  and  a  commenda- 
tion, genuine  or  forged,  from  the  eminent  Theological 
Faculty  of  Cologne.1 

This  work,  thus  written  and  thus  vouched  for,  was 
received  as  almost  divinely  inspired,  and  its  teachings 
soon  became  fruitful  in  horrors  throughout  Germany,  and, 
indeed,  throughout  Christendom.  Its  doctrines  were 
preached  in  thousands  of  pulpits,  spread  by  myriads  of 
traveling  friars,  and  soon,  through  all  central  Europe, 
came  wide  and  systematic  spying,  torture,  strangling,  and 
burning.  The  victims  were  numbered  by  thousands. 
They  included  many  men  and  children,  but  the  over- 
whelming majority  were  women.  Typical  of  the  reason- 
ing in  the  Witch  Hammer  may  be  noted  a  most  cogent 
argument  for  seeking  the  main  culprits  among  women: 
a  rare  bit  of  philology.  It  asserted  that  the  word  femina 
(woman)  was  a  compound  of  fe  (faith)  and  minus  (less) ; 
therefore  that  women  had  less  faith  than  men,  and  hence 
were  especially  prone  to  alliances  with  Satan. 

From  diocese  to  diocese,  from  village  to  village,  the 

An  English  translation  of  the  bull  Summis  desiderantes  may  be  found  in 
the  little  body  of  extracts  on  The  Witch  Persecution  edited  by  Professor 
Burr  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania's  Translations  and  Reprints.  As 
to  the  rise  of  the  witch  persecution  in  general,  compare  also  Soldan, 
Geschichte  der  Hexenprozesse,  Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  iii,  Riezler,  Geschichte  der  Hexenprocesse  in  Bayern,  and  Hinschius, 
Kirchenrccht,  vi,  i.  What  can  be  said  in  defense  of  the  Church's  relation  to 
it — and  more — has  been  said  by  Diefenbach,  Der  Hcxenwahn  vor  und  naoh 
der  Qlaubensspaltung. 

1  On  the  composition  of  the  Witch  Hammer  a  flood  of  light  has  been 
thrown  by  the  researches  of  Hansen.  See  not  only  his  two  works,  men- 
tioned above,  but  also  his  article  in  the  Westdeutschc  Zcitschrift,  1898. 


THOMASIUS  141 

witchcraft  procedure  spread,  and  the  torture  chambers 
were  soon  in  full  operation  everywhere.  The  victims, 
writhing  under  torture,  anxious  only  for  death  to  end 
their  sufferings,  confessed  to  anything  and  everything. 
All  that  was  needed  was  that  the  inquisitors  should  hint 
at  the  answers  desired,  and,  there  being  no  limit  to  the 
torture,  there  was  no  limit  to  the  folly  of  the  confessions. 
The  agonized  victims  confessed  readily  to  raising  storms, 
spreading  epidemics  and  cattle  pests,  riding  on  broom- 
sticks to  the  Blocksberg,  doing  homage  to  Satan,  signing 
Satanic  compacts  in  their  own  blood,  taking  part  in  every 
sort  of  vile  rite  which  the  imagination  of  the  inquisitors 
could  conceive,  and  even  to  bearing  children  to  Satan. 
Confessions  of  this  latter  sort  were  forced  by  torture 
from  the  lips  not  only  of  women,  but  of  children;  and 
then,  for  this  preposterous  crime,  thus  absurdly  proven, 
they  were  strangled  and  burned,  if  not  burned  alive. 

The  main  agents  in  carrying  on  this  sacred  work  in 
Germany  were,  first,  the  Dominicans,  and,  at  a  later 
period,  the  Jesuits.  They  did  it  thoroughly.  Especially 
during  the  later  sixteenth  century  and  the  earlier  seven- 
teenth we  find  them  pushing  it  everywhere. 

Leaders  of  a  forlorn  hope  against  this  folly  and  cruelty 
arose  in  Teutonic  lands  as  elsewhere, — such  as  Cornelius 
Agrippa,  John  Wier,  Dietrich  Flade,  and  Cornelius  Loos. 
All  were  persecuted  for  their  boldness,  and  the  last  two 
effectively  silenced ;  Loos,  indeed,  escaped  capital  punish- 
ment, but  only,  after  repeated  imprisonment,  by  being 
carried  off  by  the  plague,  while  Flade,  though  Chief  Jus- 
tice of  the  old  city  of  Treves  and  ex-Eector  of  its  Uni- 
versity, was  put  on  trial  by  the  Archbishop,  tortured 
until  he  confessed  everything  suggested  to  him,  and  then 
strangled  and  burned.1 

i  The  original  manuscript  records  of  the  trial  of  Flade,  including  the 
questions  of  his  inquisitors  and  his  answers  while  under  torture,  as  well 
as  a  copy  of  the  manuscript  of  Loos's  suppressed  and  long-lost  book 
against  the  persecution,  may  be  seen  in  the  library  of  Cornell  University* 


142  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

To  maintain  this  system,  there  bad  continued  a  stream 
of  teachings  from  infallible  Rome.  The  successors  of 
Pope  Innocent — Alexander  VI,  Julius  II,  Leo  X,  Adrian 
VI,  Clement  VII — had  all  found  occasion  to  urge  on  the 
pious  work ;  and,  to  deepen  and  broaden  it,  new  treatises 
were  written  by  theologians  and  jurists  in  various  parts 
of  Europe,  the  most  learned  and  most  cruelly  potent  be- 
ing the  new  manual  for  witch  finders  and  witch  murder- 
ers put  forth,  just  at  the  opening  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, by  the  Jesuit  Delrio.1 

Despite  all  this  incitement  to  persecution,  opposition 
to  it  continued.  Even  among  the  Jesuits  themselves, 
who  had  furnished  so  many  leaders  for  these  atrocities 
and  follies,  there  arose  a  few  men  who  dared  to  harbor 
doubts  and  to  seek  to  open  the  eyes  of  others.  Two  of 
these,  Tanner  and  Laymann,  whose  pleas  for  hesitation 
and  moderation  found  place  mainly  in  heavy  tomes  of  the- 
ology, reaped  only  suspicion  and  abuse.  A  third,  Father 
Friedrich  Spee,  tried  a  different  method.  Deputed  to 
hear  the  final  confessions  of  witches  before  their  execu- 
tion, he  had  learned  from  them  that  their  previous  con- 
fessions to  the  inquisitors  had  been  due  simply  to  unbear- 
able torture;  and  he  had  thenceforth  been  obliged  to  see 
multitudes  of  men,  women,  and  children  whom  he  knew  to 
be  absolutely  innocent  consigned  to  torture  and  death. 
To  reveal  the  truth  to  their  judges,  even  could  he  thus 
have  betrayed  the  secrets  of  the  confessional,  could  have 
resulted  only  in  a  repetition  of  the  torture,  in  a  renewal 
of  the  lying  confession,  and  in  suspicion  of  himself  as  an 
accomplice.  The  strain  of  this  fearful  dilemma  made  him 
prematurely  old  and  gray ;  and,  during  a  respite  from  his 
frightful  duty,  he  prepared  a  most  eloquent  treatise 
against  the  whole  delusion,  the  Cautio  Criminalis.    Even 

i  For  the  deliveries  of  the  Popes,  see  Hansen  and  the  other  authorities 
named  in  an  earlier  note.  The  influence  of  Delrio's  book  is  best  shown  by 
its  many  editions. 


THOMASIUS  143 

this  lie  dared  not  publish,  but  circulated  it  only  in  manu- 
script till  some  friend,  perhaps  not  without  the  author's 
connivance,  secured  its  publication  at  the  Protestant  uni- 
versity town  of  Einteln.  It  found  a  wide,  and  in  many 
quarters,  a  sympathetic  hearing ;  yet,  in  spite  of  its  con- 
vincing statement  of  facts  and  its  eloquent  arraignment 
of  the  whole  procedure,  a  change  came  but  slowly.  The 
persecutions  raged  on  much  as  before.  Spee  had,  indeed, 
imparted  his  secret  to  a  young  student — Johann  Philipp 
von  Schonborn — who  afterward  rose  to  be  Bishop  of 
Wiirzburg,  Bishop  of  "Worms,  Archbishop  of  Mainz,  Pri- 
mate of  Germany ;  but,  though  von  Schonborn  did  untold 
good  by  checking  the  persecution  throughout  his  dioceses 
so  long  as  he  lived,  and  confided  to  such  friends  as  the 
philosopher  Leibnitz  the  secret  of  his  opposition,  he 
dared  not  take  open  ground  against  the  superstition,  and 
could  effect  no  permanent  reform.1 

Nor  had  the  Eeformation  brought  to  Protestant  lands 
any  alleviation  of  these  follies  and  cruelties.  The  lead- 
ing reformers,  both  Lutheran  and  Calvinist,  accepted  the 
whole  monstrous  system  as  grounded,  infallibly,  in 
Holy  Scripture.  The  great  body  of  Protestant  theolo- 
gians and  ecclesiastics,  as  soon  as  they  had  obtained 
power,  exerted  themselves  to  prove  their  orthodoxy  by 
making  their  procedure  even  more  searching  and  cruel, 
if  possible,  than  that  in  Catholic  states. 

i  How  far  from  thoroughgoing  was  the  skepticism  of  Tanner  and  Lay- 
mann  has  been  pointed  out  by  Riezler  (Geschichte  der  Hexenprozesse  in 
Bayern,  pp.  248-267).  His  doubts  as  to  the  praise  due  Laymann,  how- 
ever, have  been  partly  annulled  by  the  studies  of  Duhr  (his  Die  Stellung 
der  Jesuiten  in  den  deutschen  Hexenprozessen  and  his  article,  in  the 
Zeitschrift  fur  Katholische  Theologie,  1899,  on  Paul  Laymann  und  die 
Hexenprocesse) .  As  to  Tanner,  see  also  Rapp,  Die  Hexenprozesse  und  ihre 
Gegner  in  Tirol.  On  Spee  (his  latest  biographer  prefers  to  spell  his  name 
Spe)  see,  beside  Duhr's  book  just  named,  the  same  writer's  Neue  Daten 
und  Brief e  zum  Leben  des  P.  Friedrich  Spe  (in  the  Eistorisches  Jahrbuch 
of  the  Gorres-Gesellschaft,  1900)  and  his  revision  of  the  life  of  Spee  by 
Diel. 


144  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

In  small  towns,  whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  more 
executions  sometimes  took  place  in  a  single  year  for  this 
imaginary  crime  than  are  now  allowed  in  the  whole  Ger- 
man Empire  for  capital  crimes  during  decades  of  years. 
The  statement  has  never  been  disproved  that  in  the  cen- 
tury previous  to  the  birth  of  Thomasius — the  hundred 
years  between  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  mid- 
dle of  the  seventeenth  century — more  than  a  hundred 
thousand  persons  were  put  to  death  in  Germany  alone  for 
witchcraft,  confessed  under  torture;  and,  though  there 
had  gradually  come  some  diminution  in  the  number  of 
victims,  it  remained  a  fearful  curse  even  in  Thomasius 's 
time — accepted  largely  by  the  best  men,  and,  among  these, 
by  Thomasius  himself.1 

But  in  1694  he  was  called,  as  a  member  of  the  Halle 
faculty  of  law,  to  take  part  in  a  discussion  on  the 
procedure  to  be  used  against  an  alleged  witch.  Basing 
his  decision  upon  the  doctrines  and  methods  of  the  great 
theologians  and  jurists  of  Germany,  and  indeed  of  the 
world,  he  gave  his  vote  for  the  use  of  the  torture,  against 
the  supposed  criminal.  Happily  the  accused  was  saved 
by  the  verdict  of  the  majority  of  Thomasius 's  associates, 
led  by  the  vote  of  Professor  Stryk,  his  principal  rival  in 
the  Halle  Faculty  of  Law. 

Had  Thomasius  been  a  mere  dogmatist,  or  a  logical 
gladiator,  or  a  sensation-monger,  or  simply  opinionated 
or  selfish  or  conceited,  he  would  have  plunged  into  the 

i  In  addition  to  the  authorities  already  given,  see  Klemperer;  Soldan, 
Geschichte  der  Bexen-Processe  in  Deutschland;  Scherr,  Kulturgcschichte 
Deutschlands,  chap,  v;  Henne-am-Rhyn,  Kulturgcschichte  dcr  ncuern  Zeit, 
etc.  For  profound,  and  at  the  same  time  interesting  discussions  based 
on  the  results  of  the  superstition,  see  Wiichter,  Bcitrage  zur  Geschichte  des 
Deutschen  Slrafrechts;  and,  in  English,  the  admirable  summary  given  in 
Lecky's  History  of  Rationalism  in  Europe.  For  exact  statistics  and  de- 
tails, see,  in  either  edition  of  Soldan,  chapters  giving  the  lists  of  the  con- 
demned, with  their  ages,  at  Wurzburg,  Bamberg,  Salzburg,  and  elsewhere; 
also  Horst's  Zaubcr-Bibliothek,  and  a  mass  of  other  authorities  cited  by 
the  present  writer  in  his  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology. 


THOMASIUS  145 

fray,  and,  with  pen  and  tongue,  shown  himself  right  and 
his  opponents  wrong.  It  was  a  fine  opportunity  for 
noise,  for  popularity,  and  for  victory  over  Stryk,  his 
great  rival.  But  he  spurned  all  such  temptations;  put 
aside  all  hostile  feeling  toward  Stryk;  bore  his  mortifica- 
tion without  complaining ;  began  studying  the  whole  sub- 
ject more  thoroughly ;  examined  with  the  utmost  care  all 
the  cases  he  could  hear  of;  and  the  result  was  that  he  not 
only  acknowledged  himself  wrong,  but,  having  begun  by 
declaring  against  the  torturing  of  witches,  he  soon  took 
a  step  further,  for  which  the  whole  world  is  to-day  his 
debtor :  he  declared  his  disbelief  in  the  whole  superstition, 
and  especially  in  a  devil — hoofed,  horned,  and  tailed — 
who  whisks  wretches  through  the  air,  assembles  them 
upon  the  Blocksberg,  accepts  their  homage,  and  makes 
those  compacts  with  them  which  formed  the  foundation  of 
the  witch  trials.1 

Thomasius's  position  was  now  full  of  peril.  Indeed, 
he  seems  himself  to  have  felt  this,  and  he  was  careful  to 
define  it.  He  stated,  no  doubt  with  perfect  honesty,  that 
as  the  Bible,  both  in  Old  Testament  and  New,  declares 
the  existence  of  witches  and  sorcerers,  and  also  declares, 
"Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live,"  he  did  not  pre- 
sume to  deny  the  existence  of  witches  or  their  criminal- 
ity; but  what  he  protested  against  was  the  mode  of  action 
usually  attributed  to  Satan,  and  especially  the  existence 

i  For  Thomasius'  own  account  of  this  part  of  his  life,  see  his  Juristische 
Handel  (Halle,  1720,  I.  Theil,  xviii). 

For  light  upon  Thomasius'  first  utterances  against  the  prevailing 
■witchcraft  theory,  see  the  Programmata  Thomasiana,  Halle  and  Leipzig, 
1724,  pp.  351-35o.  They  present  a  picture,  at  times  pathetic,  and  at 
times  comic,  of  a  strong  man  seeking  to  rend  his  fetters. 

For  the  growth  of  Thomasius'  theories  on  this  subject,  see  Stintzing  and 
Landsberg,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Rechtswissenschaft,  iii,  especially  pp. 
91,  92,  which  show  that  he  speedily  went  beyond  Stryk,  who  simply 
denied  the  existence  of  any  proofs  of  the  alleged  diabolical  mode  of  action, 
and  denied  the  possibility  of  such  relations  between  devils  and  human 
beings. 


146  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

of  Satanic  compacts  and  that  mass  of  unreason  which  the 
great  theologians  and  ecclesiastics  of  the  Middle  Ages 
and  the  Reformation  period,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  had 
for  so  many  generations  developed  and  defended. 

This  disclaimer  helped  him  little.  Catholic  writers  de- 
nounced it  as  only  one  more  example  of  the  skeptical  tend- 
encies of  Protestantism;  Protestants  denounced  it  as 
bringing  disgrace  upon  their  Church.  Both  the  old  the- 
ologians and  the  new  pointed  out  the  fact  that  he  im- 
pugned not  only  the  judgments  of  the  most  learned  and 
pious  authorities,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  but  that  he 
defied  the  clear  statements  of  Holy  Writ,  the  beliefs  of 
the  primitive  Church,  the  assertions  of  the  Fathers,  the 
decisions  of  Councils  dictated  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  the 
infallible  decrees  of  a  long  line  of  Popes,  the  whole  mass 
of  theological  wisdom,  past  and  present,  and  therefore 
the  voice  of  the  Holy  Church  Universal  as  uttered  "  al- 
ways, everywhere,  and  by  all. ' ' 

Remembrances  of  the  fate  of  many  who  had  made  a 
similar  fight  might  well  haunt  him,  and  especially  of  the 
trial  of  Dietrich  Flade,  who,  like  him,  had  at  first  believed 
in  the  punishment  of  witches,  like  him  had  learned  to 
doubt  the  evidence  against  them,  like  him  had  said  so, 
and  then,  though  like  him  an  eminent  jurist  and  a  uni- 
versity professor,  had  been  tortured  and  put  to  death. 

Since  that  judicial  murder  a  century  had  passed,  and  a 
series  of  champions  had  won  various  strong  positions 
for  humanity ;  but,  though  the  defenders  of  the  supersti- 
tion could  no  longer  send  their  enemies  to  the  stake,  they 
had  fallen  back  into  strong  entrenchments,  and  were  well 
armed. 

The  first  of  his  main  attacks  on  the  whole  witchcraft 
position  were  made  by  Thomasius  during  the  opening  years 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  earlier  of  these  were 
curious  in  that  they  appeared  as  the  theses  of  students 
under  his  presidency:  notable  among  them  being  one  by 


THOMASIUS  147 

Joliann  Reiche  in  1701  and  another  by  Johann  Paul  Ipsen 
in  1712.  Thomasius  freely  acknowledged  his  controlling 
part  in  these,  and  during  the  remainder  of  his  life  fol- 
lowed them  up  with  lectures,  treatises,  tracts,  discussions 
of  trials,  translations  of  foreign  works, — all  in  the  same 
direction  against  this  theological  and  judicial  monstros- 
ity.1 

The  air  was  thick  with  missiles,  theological  and  judicial. 
In  the  Protestant  church,  there  was  cited  against  him 
that  colossus  of  theology  and  ecclesiastical  law,  Benedict 
Carpzov — the  man  who  boasted  that  he  had  read  the 
Bible  through  fifty-three  times;  that  he  took  the  Holy 
Communion  at  least  once  a  month ;  that  he  had  sentenced 
or  caused  to  be  sentenced  to  death  over  twenty  thousand 
persons ;  that  he  had  devoted  his  life  to  strengthening  the 
foundations  of  witchcraft  procedure,  and  to  increasing 
the  severity  of  torture.  In  the  older  church,  at  the  head 
of  Thomasius  \s  innumerable  adversaries,  as  regarded 
theory,  sat  a  multitude  of  the  most  eminent  theological 
writers;  and,  as  regarded  practice,  such  prelates  as  the 
Archbishop  of  Salzburg  and  most  of  the  other  ecclesias- 
tical princes  of  South  Germany,  who  quietly  ignored  all 
argument,  and  went  on  torturing  and  burning  as  of  old. 

But  the  work  of  so  many  heroic  champions  and  mar- 
tyrs, now  crowned  by  the  efforts  of  Thomasius,  began  to 
bear  abundant  fruit.  "When,  in  1679,  the  Archbishop  of 
Salzburg  sent  in  one  year  to  the  stake  ninety-seven  per- 
sons for  witchcraft,  he  ended  the  series  of  greater  burn- 

i  In  the  library  of  the  Cornell  University  are  not  only  copies  of  the 
original  theses  of  Reiche  and  Ipseri,  but  a  mass  of  publications  and  manu- 
scripts of  all  sorts  relating  to  the  whole  struggle.  For  a  good  detailed 
statement,  see  Luden,  Christian  Thomasius,  p.  274  and  note. 

"In  general,"  writes  Riezler,  one  of  the  latest  and  most  eminent  of  the 
German  historians  who  have  studied  this  subject,  "Rationalism  (die 
Aufklarung)  in  the  Protestant  lands  of  the  Empire,  for  which  especially 
the  literary  activity  of  Christian  Thomasius  was  decisive,  conquered  the 
witeh-delusion  about  one  or  two  generations  earlier  than  in  the  Catholic." 
See  his  Geschichte  der  Hexenprozesse  in  Bayern,  p.  282. 


148         SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ings;  when  the  Bishop  of  Wiirzburg  brought  Maria 
Kenata  Sanger  to  scaffold  and  stake  in  1749,  and  when  in 
1775  the  courts  of  the  Prince  Abbot  of  Kempten  beheaded 
Anna  Maria  Schwagelin,  they  ended  judicial  executions 
for  witchcraft  in  Germany;  and  when  Anna  Goldi  was 
executed  at  Glarus,  Switzerland,  in  1782,  and  two  witches 
were  judicially  burned  in  Poland  in  1793,  the  whole  series 
was  ended  in  civilized  Europe. 


Ill 

BUT,  perhaps,  even  greater  were  Thomasius 's  serv- 
ices in  another  field.  Closely  allied  with  the  witch- 
craft superstition  was  the  system  of  Procedure  by  Tor- 
ture, then  prevalent  throughout  the  Continent.  The 
connection  between  torture  and  witchcraft  was  logical.  In 
England,  where  torture  was  rarely  used,  witchcraft  never 
produced  any  such  long  series  of  judicial  murders  as  on 
the  Continent;  but  in  Scotland  and  Continental  Europe, 
wherever  torture  was  applied,  it  came  to  be  an  axiom  that 
a  person  charged  with  witchcraft  who  once  entered  the 
torture  chamber  was  lost.1 

The  system  of  procedure  by  torture  in  securing  testi- 
mony regarding  crime  had  lingered  along  with  more  or 
less  vitality  ever  since  the  days  of  the  Roman  Republic. 
One  of  the  strongest  arguments  against  it  had  been  made 
by  Cicero,  though  it  is  only  fair  to  state  that,  on  another 
occasion,  Cicero,  after  the  fashion  of  men  like  him,  argued 
on  the  other  side.  In  the  latter  days  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, largely  under  the  influence  of  the  Stoics,  it  had 
nearly  died  out.  Successive  Pagan  Emperors  had  ame- 
liorated it ;  had,  indeed,  abolished  its  worst  features,  and 
its  destruction  seemed  certain.  The  barbarians  of  Eu- 
rope, with  few  exceptions,  ignored  it  in  their  codes ;  from 
the  Vehmgericht  it  was  absolutely  excluded. 

i  For  a  most  masterly  essay,  by  a  great  jurist,  on  the  connection  be- 
tween wholesale  witchcraft  convictions  and  procedure  by  torture,  see 
Wachter,  Beitrage  zur  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Strafrechts,  especially  in 
the  appendices.  For  Thomasius'  special  arguments,  made  in  legal  treatises 
of  1711  and  1712,  showing  the  logical  and  historical  connection  between  the 
inquisitorial  procedure,  as  sanctioned  early  in  the  13th  century  by  Pope 
Innocent  III,  the  use  of  torture,  and  the  witch  trials,  see  Stintzing  and 
Landsberg,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Rechtswissenschaft,  iii,  pp.  97,  98. 

149 


150  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

The  Christian  Church,  too,  in  its  days  of  comparative 
weakness,  seemed  to  pronounce  against  it.  In  the  fifth 
century  St.  Augustine,  in  the  sixth  century  St.  Gregory, 
and  in  the  ninth  Pope  Nicholas  I,  were  among  great 
church  leaders  who  denounced  it,  and  during  the  early 
Middle  Ages  it  fell  comparatively  into  abeyance. 

But  the  great  misfortune  was  that  the  Church,  after 
arriving  at  power,  abjured  the  mild  policy  which  it  had 
supported  during  its  weakness,  gave  torture  new  vitality, 
found  cogent  reasons  for  it,  and  introduced  it  in  a  far 
more  cruel  form  and  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  had 
ever  before  been  known  under  Greeks,  Romans,  or  bar- 
barians. 

For,  under  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  in  the  ancient 
world  generally,  the  cruelties  of  torture  were  limited. 
It  was  from  this  fact,  indeed,  that  Cicero  drew  one  of 
his  strongest  arguments  against  it,  namely,  that  a  crim- 
inal, if  robust,  could  resist  torture  and  avoid  confession, 
but  that  an  innocent  man,  if  physically  weak,  might  be 
forced  to  confess  crimes  which  he  had  never  committed. 

But  in  the  Christian  Church,  during  the  Middle  Ages, 
there  was  developed  the  theory  of  "excepted  cases." 
Under  the  belief  that  heresy  and  witchcraft  were  crimes 
especially  favored  by  Satan,  and  that  Satan  would  help 
his  own,  the  old  Roman  procedure  by  torture  was  not 
only  revived,  but  at  last  made  unlimited.  It  was  held 
that  no  torture  could  be  too  severe  in  suppressing  these 
crimes.  Every  plea  against  the  most  extreme  torture 
was  met  by  the  argument  that  Satan  would  of  course 
strengthen  heretics  and  witches  to  resist  ordinary  tor- 
ture. The  restraints  of  the  earlier  Pagan  civilization 
were  therefore  cast  aside.  In  trials  for  heresy  and 
witchcraft  there  was  absolutely  no  limit  to  torture.  This 
new  evolution  of  cruelty  received  the  highest  infallible 
sanction  when  in  1252  Innocent  IV  issued  his  directions 


THOMASIUS  151 

to  the  Inquisition  in  Tuscany  and  Lombardy  that  confes- 
sion should  be  extorted  from  heretics  by  torture,  and  this 
sacred  precedent  was  followed  for  centuries  by  new  and 
even  more  cruel  decrees  of  Popes,  Councils,  and  Bishops 
regarding  procedure  against  both  heretics  and  witches 
throughout  Europe. 

This  procedure  by  torture  naturally  passed  from  the 
ecclesiastical  into  the  lay  courts,  and  all  the  more  so  be- 
cause a  method  which  was  considered  reasonable  in  one 
court  seemed  reasonable  in  another. 

From  time  to  time  noble  voices  were  raised  in  the 
Church  against  it,  and  among  these  that  of  Geiler  of 
Kaisersberg, — the  most  popular  of  preachers  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  sixteenth  century, — whose  warnings 
against  it  resounded  under  the  arches  of  Strasburg 
Cathedral,  and  along  the  upper  Ehine. 

But  all  in  vain.  During  generation  after  generation 
procedure  by  torture  was  extended  and  systematized.  In 
the  sixteenth  century  the  great  "Caroline  Code"  of 
Charles  V  gave  it  new  life.  In  the  seventeenth  century 
the  codes  of  Louis  XIV  gave  it  new  life  in  France.  In 
the  eighteenth  century  the  code  of  Maria  Theresa  gave 
it  new  sanction  in  Germany. 

In  Great  Britain,  it  long  flourished  noxiously  in  Scot- 
land, and  especially  during  the  reign  of  James  VI.  For- 
tunately England  remained  comparatively  free  from  it,, 
the  main  exceptions  to  the  milder  English  practice, 
strange  to  say,  having  occurred  under  Lord  Coke  and 
Lord  Bacon. 

Strong  thinkers,  indeed,  arose  from  first  to  last  against 
it.  But  when  such  philosophers  as  Montaigne  and  Bayle 
and  Voltaire,  and  such  jurists  as  Pussort  and  Sonnenfels 
and  Beccaria,  would  have  abolished  torture,  the  whole 
Church  influence,  as  well  as  the  vast  conservative  author- 
ity in  the  legal  profession,  was  against  such  an  innova- 


152  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

tion,  and  this  procedure  steadily  maintained  its  hold  upon 
the  world.1 

It  was  widely  argued  that,  since  the  Almighty  punishes 
the  greater  part  of  mankind  with  tortures  infinite  in  sever- 
ity and  eternal  in  duration,  men  might  imitate  the  divine 
example  by  administering  tortures  which  at  the  worst 
can  only  be  feeble  and  brief  as  compared  with  the  divine 
pattern.  It  was  also  held,  as  a  purely  practical  view,  by 
the  great  body  of  the  ecclesiastics  and  lay  lawyers  that 
torture  was  the  only  effective  method  of  eliciting  testi- 
mony. Among  the  monuments  of  this  vast  superstition 
which  exist  to  this  day,  the  traveler  sees  the  "witch 
towers,"  the  torture  chambers,  and  the  collections  of 
instruments  of  torture  in  various  towns  on  the  Continent : 
notably  at  Nuremberg,  Katisbon,  Munich,  and  The 
Hague ;  but  perhaps  nothing  brings  the  system  more  viv- 
idly before  us  than  the  executioners'  tariffs  still  pre- 
served. Four  of  these  may  be  seen  in  the  library  of 
Cornell  University,  and,  among  them,  especially  that  is- 
sued by  the  Archbishop  Elector  of  Cologne  in  1757.  On 
four  printed  folio  pages,  it  enumerates  in  fifty-five  para- 
graphs every  sort  of  hideous  cruelty  which  an  executioner 
could  commit  upon  a  prisoner,  with  the  sum  allowed  him 
for  each,  and  for  the  instruments  therein  required.  Typ- 
ical examples  from  this  tariff  are  the  following: — 

i  For  a  general  statement  of  the  history  and  development  of  torture, 
especially  on  the  Continent,  see  Wiichter,  Beitriige  zur  Geschichte  des 
Romischen  Strafrechts,  as  already  cited.  For  an  excellent  statement  of 
its  general  development,  see  Lea,  Superstition  and  Force,  edition  of  1892, 
pp.  477,  478,  also  575,  576.  For  the  history  of  procedure  by  torture  in 
England,  see  Jardine's  essay,  also  Pike,  History  of  Crime  in  England, 
and  for  means  of  tracing  out  the  historical  development  of  English  and 
Scotch  ideas  regarding  it,  see  the  index  to  Howell's  State  Trials,  under  the 
word  "Torture."  For  the  Church's  use  of  it,  see  also  Lea,  The  Inquisition 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  i,  421  ff;  or,  if  a  Catholic  authority  be  preferred,  the 
chapter  on  "Innocent  IV  and  the  Torture"  in  the  Abbe"  Vacandard's 
L 'Inquisition. 


THOMASIUS  153 

Thalers.  Alb. 

1.  For  tearing  asunder  with  four  horses  ....     5        26 

2.  For  quartering 4 

5.  For  beheading  and  burning 5         26 

7.  For  strangling  and  burning 4 

8.  For  cord  and  for  laying  the  fire  and  kindling  it     .  2 

9.  For  burning  alive .      .  4 

11.  For  breaking  a  man  alive  on  the  wheel  ....  4 

13.  For  setting  up  the  wheel  with  the  body  twisted  in  it     2        52 

19.  For  cutting  off  a  hand  or  sundry  fingers,  and  for 

beheading, — altogether 3  26 

20.  For  burning  with  a  hot  iron 1  26 

22.  For  beheading  and  placing  the  head  upon  a  stake  .  3  26 
24.  For  beheading,  twisting  the  body  in  the  wheel,  and 

placing  the  head  upon  a  stake, — altogether  .      .     5 
28.  For  tearing  a  criminal  before  his  execution  with 

red-hot  pincers, — each  tearing  of  the  flesh  .      .  26 

31.  For  nailing  a  tongue  or  hand  to  the  gallows  .      .     1         26 

42.  For  the  first  grade  of  torture 1        26 

44.  For  the  second  grade  of  torture,  including  setting 

the  limbs  afterward,  with  salve  for  same         .     2         26 

and  so  one  through  the  fifty-five  items  and  specifications. 
On  this  whole  system  also,  thus  widespread,  thus 
entrenched,  thus  defended,  Thomasius  declared  war. 
Again  it  was  through  the  thesis  of  a  student — one 
Martin  Bernhardi — that,  in  1705,  he  opened  the  campaign. 
But  this  time  the  student  in  his  zeal  went  faster  than 
Thomasius  could  follow.  The  letter  he  appended  to  the 
youth's  thesis  shows  his  practical  caution.  He  commends 
the  student  for  his  courage  and  echoes  his  conviction  that 
the  torture  is  a  blot  upon  Christian  states ;  but  he  counts 
it  rash  to  sweep  it  away  all  at  once.  Further  than  this 
Thomasius  seems  never  to  have  gone;  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  the  sincerity  of  his  hesitation.  Toward 
the  very  close  of  his  life,  in  1724,  he,  reprinted  this  letter 
of  caution — by  itself  and  without  a  word  of  comment — 


154  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

in  the  little  volume  of  l '  Programmata "  into  which  he 
gathered  the  academic  utterances  of  which  he  was  most 
proud.1  But  in  the  mean  time  he  had  so  undermined, 
even  among  jurists,  the  prestige  of  the  torture  by  his 
exposures  of  its  cruelty  and  fallibility,  by  his  researches 
into  its  history,  by  his  demonstrations  of  its  responsibil- 
ity for  the  witch-panic  and  other  judicial  delusions,  that, 
though  for  a  century  yet  legal  conservatism  continued  to 
defend  it,  its  abandonment  began  even  before  his  death. 
The  sovereigns  of  Prussia  and  of  other  German  states 
gradually,  under  the  influence  of  the  new  thought,  allowed 
torture  to  fall  into  disuse.  There  were  some  rare  excep- 
tions, but  at  the  close  of  Frederick  the  Great's  reign  it 
had  virtually  ended.2 

The  influence  of  Thomasius  soon  spread  throughout 
other  parts  of  Europe.  Though  torture  lingered  in 
France,  and  was  only  fully  swept  from  the  statute  books 
by  the  Eevolution  of  1789,  and  though  it  prevailed  in  vari- 

i  For  the  letter  in  which  Thomasius  expressed  his  doubts,  see  Bieder- 
mann,  as  above.  Bernhardi's  thesis  was  itself  often  reprinted.  Three 
impressions  may  be  found  in  the  library  of  Cornell  University — the  orig- 
inal of  1705,  one  of  1743,  and  one  of  1759.  In  the  second  the  letter  of 
Thomasius  is  still  appended;  in  the  third  it  has  been  dropped.  Strangely 
enough,  it  is  lacking  in  this  copy  of  the  original  impression,  the  two  final 
pages  being  filled  instead  with  laudatory  verses  by  friends  of  Bernhardi. 
As,  however,  the  letter  of  Thomasius  was  written  before  the  publication  of 
the  thesis,  and  expressly  for  inclusion  in  it,  and  as  the  official  catalogue  of 
his  writings  published  just  after  his  death  (in  the  Wohlverdientes  Denkmal, 
Halle,  1729),  just  as  expressly  describes  the  original  edition  as  containing 
it,  it  can  only  be  inferred  that  a  part  of  the  impression  was  printed  with- 
out it. 

2  As  a  curious  and  painful  monument  of  the  occasional  use  of  torture 
in  Prussia,  even  at  a  late  period,  see,  in  the  Cornell  University  library, 
the  contemporary  account  of  the  trial  and  punishment  of  sundry  servants 
who  robbed  the  royal  palace  at  Berlin.  It  contains  illustrations  repre- 
senting various  administrations  of  torture.  For  the  horrors  of  torture  in 
its  prime,  see,  in  the  same  library,  the  trial  of  the  "Anointers"  at  Milan 
(a  mass  of  men  and  women  who  were  tortured  until  they  confessed  that 
they  had  caused  the  plague  there  by  anointing  the  city  walls) — the  Pro- 
cesso  dei  Untori — with  even  more  fearful  illustrations. 


THOMASIUS  155 

ous  other  parts  of  Continental  Europe  until  even  a  later 
period,  it  had  mainly  vanished  before  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  under  the  antagonism  of  Thomasius 
in  Germany,  Voltaire  in  France,  and  Beccaria  in  Italy. 

In  still  another  great  struggle  Thomasius  did  heroic 
work.  While  in  the  thick  of  this  war  against  witchcraft 
and  torture,  he  fought  no  less  bravely  against  Intoler- 
ance. 

Very  early  in  his  career  he  laid  down  certain  funda- 
mental ideas  on  the  subject,  and  these  frequently  reap- 
pear in  his  writings.  He  declared  against  all  state 
interference  with  religious  convictions;  he  formulated 
the  theory  that  human  law  deals  with  men's  wills,  and 
not  with  their  consciences;  and  from  these  germs  there 
bloomed  forth  essays,  dialogues,  satires,  every  form  of 
attack  upon  every  form  of  intolerance,  culminating  in 
1722  in  his  History  of  the  Struggle  between  the  Empire 
and  the  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  in  the  appended 
study  on  Church  and  State  in  later  centuries.  From  the 
first  word  of  this  book  he  goes  straight  to  the  mark.  He 
points  out  errors  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  displays 
the  futility  of  persecution,  and  makes  clear  the  necessity 
of  proclaiming  religious  liberty.  All  this  gave  great 
offense,  and  especially  were  his  enemies  shocked  by  one 
pungent  expression:  "The  duty  of  Princes  is  not  to 
save  souls,  but  to  preserve  peace."  This  was  denounced 
as  rank  heresy,  and  even  as  blasphemy. 

In  Germany  the  idea  of  toleration  had  hardly  begun 
to  dawn.  Religious  persecution  had  indeed  been  con- 
demned by  the  early  Church,  but  only  while  the  Church 
was  herself  persecuted.  When  she  became  able  to  perse- 
cute, she  quickly  changed  her  view.  Nothing  could  seem 
more  tolerant  than  the  eloquent  protests  of  Tertullian 
and  Lactantius  when  the  Church  was  weak ;  nothing  was 
more  fruitful  in  cruelty  than  the  arguments  for  persecu- 
tion by  Firmicus  Maternus,  St.  Augustine,  and  the  great 


156  SEVEN  GEEAT  STATESMEN 

theologians  who  followed  them,  when  the  Church  had 
become  strong.  The  same  must  be  said  of  Protestantism. 
During  its  brief  period  of  weakness  its  leaders  urged  toler- 
ance; in  the  long  period  of  power  it  was  intolerant. 
"When,  at  last,  war  forced  on  Germany  a  sort  of  tolerance, 
it  was  in  a  form  which  to  us  now  seems  incredible.  The 
religious  peace  of  Augsburg  in  1555  established  a  tolera- 
tion expressed  in  the  maxim,  "To  whom  the  territory  be- 
longs, the  religion  belongs":  Cujas  est  regio  ejus  est 
religio.  Toleration  extended  only  to  allowing  subjects 
who  dissented  from  the  religious  ideas  of  their  ruler  to 
emigrate  from  his  dominions.  Even  into  minds  blessed 
with  the  largest  and  most  liberal  instincts, — minds  like 
those  of  Luther  and  Melanchthon, — no  full  ideas  of  toler- 
ation, much  less  of  religious  liberty,  had  really  entered. 
But  Thomasius  followed  out  his  principle  logically.  He 
stood  not  merely  for  toleration,  but  for  religious  liberty. 
Whoever  was  oppressed  for  conscience'  sake  found  in  him 
a  defender.  Spener  and  his  disciples  were  glad  to  avail 
themselves  of  his  aid  against  oppression,  and  he  stood 
by  them  firmly,  receiving  more  than  his  share  of  the 
epithets  hurled  at  them;  and  it  should  also  be  said  to  his 
honor  that,  when  the  followers  of  Spener,  at  last,  in  their 
turn,  became  powerful,  and  therefore  intolerant,  he  left 
them  forever.1 

Just  at  the  close  of  his  life— in  1723— the  old  Titan 
girded  himself  for  yet  another  thrust  at  legal  supersti- 
tion.    The  very  title  of  his  scathing  dissertation  is  an 

i  For  Thomasius'  main  line  of  argument  in  favor  of  Toleration,  see 
Das  Rccht  evangelischcr  Fiirsten  in  theologischen  Strcitigkeiten,  etc., 
etc.  (arguments  by  himself  and  Brenneysen),  Halle,  1696.  On  the  whole 
subject  of  the  earlier  tolerance  and  later  intolerance  of  the  Church,  see 
the  admirable  chapters  on  Persecution  in  Lecky's  History  of  Rationalism  in 
Europe.  On  the  reasons  for  Thomasius'  changed  attitude  toward  the  Piet- 
ists, see  especially  the  annotated  reprint  of  Joachim  Lange's  attack  upon 
him  (1703).  If  these  annotations  are  not  from  his  pen,  they  were  certainly 
inspired  by  him. 


THOMASIUS  157 

argument:  ""Whether  penalties  upon  the  living  which 
disgrace  them  for  life  are  absurd  and  to  be  put  away." 
The  laws  of  all  states  then  abounded  with  such  punish- 
ments, which,  by  attaching  some  permanent  stigma  to 
those  who  had  once  been  convicted  of  a  crime,  made  them 
outcasts  among  their  fellows  and  forced  them  to  turn 
to  crime  as  their  only  means  of  livelihood.  Their  aboli- 
tion, now  begun,  was  one  of  the  first  steps  in  the  substi- 
tution of  reformation,  as  an  aim  of  penalty,  for  retribu- 
tion or  mere  deterrence.1 

All  along  in  Thomasius's  career  we  see  him  putting 
forth  ideas  of  vast  use  to  the  world :  germ  ideas,  some  of 
which  have  been  obliged  to  wait  for  centuries  before  com- 
ing to  full  bloom  and  fruitage  in  institutions  and  laws. 
He  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  in  Germany- — groaning 
under  Princes  by  the  grace  of  God — that  men  were 
created  naturally  equal.  He  asserted  the  rights  of 
women  to  a  higher  education  and  to  the  individual  pos- 
session of  property.  His  impartiality  was  judicial,  and 
to  the  last  he  continued  his  various  methods  of  work. 
In  1720-21  he  published  four  volumes  and  in  1723-25 
three  more  of  Thoughts  and  Reminiscences  of  his  legal 
life,  an  admirable  mixture,  profound  and  comical,  grave 
and  gay ;  but  all  pervaded  with  love  of  truth  and  hatred 
of  tyranny. 

His  old  enemies  remained  bitter ;  but  a  new  generation 
was  coming  on,  and  the  strongest  men  in  it  were  his 
friends.  Supporters  came  when  least  expected.  The 
University  of  Leipsic,  from  which  he  had  been  forced  to 
flee,  later  made  amends  by  calling  him  to  one  of  its  most 
honored  professorships.  This  he  declined,  and  was  soon 
afterward  made  Director  of  the  University  of  Halle,  and 
first  Professor  of  Jurisprudence.  His  work  ended  only 
with  his  life.     His  manner  of  attack  in  his  later  years 

1  See  Stintzing  and  Landsberg,  Geschichte  der  Deutschen  Rechtswissen- 
schaft,  iii,  105. 


15S  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

became  less  unsparing  than  in  his  youth ;  but  what  he  lost 
in  vigor  he  gained  in  authority. 

As  we  look  back  over  his  life,  so  full  of  blessings  to 
mankind,  we  can  now  see  clearly  one  result  of  his  activity 
to  which  no  reference  has  hitherto  been  made,  yet  which 
was  in  some  respects  the  most  permanent  of  all; — a  re- 
sult so  fruitful  that  it  has  acted  and  is  still  acting  power- 
fully in  our  own  time,  and  above  all  in  France,  Great 
Britain,  and  the  United  States. 

This  was  his  general  influence  on  the  higher  educa- 
tion,— an  influence  in  favor  of  fkeedom  from  sectarian" 
interference  or  control.  Down  to  the  time  of  his  work 
at  Halle,  German  universities  had  been  mainly  sectarian, 
and  their  sectarian  character,  whether  frankly  brutal  and 
tyrannical,  or  exercised  deftly  and  through  intrigue,  held 
back  science  and  better  modes  of  thought  during  many 
generations. 

Theology,  as  the  so-called  "queen  of  the  sciences," 
insisted  on  shaping  all  teaching  in  the  alleged  interest  of 
"saving  souls."  Innumerable  examples  of  this  in  the 
dealings  of  the  older  universities  might  be  cited.  But 
Thomasius's  work  at  the  University  of  Halle  began  the 
end  of  it.  By  him,  more  than  by  any  other,  was  that 
institution  brought  out  of  the  old  sectarian  system.  In 
the  environment  of  right  reason  which  he  there  pro- 
moted, and  which  was  spread  throughout  his  fatherland, 
was  evolved  that  freedom  of  research  and  instruction 
which  has  made  the  German  universities  the  foremost  in 
the  world,  and  has  given  to  Germany  a  main  source  of 
strength, — and  not  less  in  theology  than  in  other  fields. 

His  effort  against  witchcraft,  torture,  religious  per- 
secution, and  various  cruelties  and  pedantries,  was  tri- 
umphant long  ago,  but  the  struggle  began  by  him  against 
sectarian  control  of  instruction  still  continues,  and  no- 
where more  steadily  than  in  the  United  States.  Evi- 
dences of  it  in  Great  Britain  are  the  liberalizing  of  her 


THOMASIUS  159 

great  universities,  and  the  election  of  laymen  to  so  many 
positions  in  the  higher  instruction  to  which  only  eccle- 
siastics were  formerly  eligible.  Evidences  of  it  in 
France  are  the  successful  efforts  to  wrest  the  control  of 
primary  education  from  various  monkish  orders.  In  our 
own  country  it  is  seen  in  the  escape  of  various  older  uni- 
versities from  sectarian  control,  and  in  the  establishment 
of  new  universities,  especially  in  our  Western  states, 
freed  from  this  incubus, — and  all,  whether  East  or  West, 
more  and  more  under  the  management  of  laymen  rather 
than  of  ecclesiastics.  The  clauses  in  various  state  consti- 
tutions, notably  that  recently  inserted  in  the  constitution 
of  the  state  of  New  York,  forbidding  appropriations  to 
institutions  under  sectarian  management,  and  the  exclu- 
sion from  Mr.  Carnegie's  fifteen  million  pension  fund  of 
universities  under  the  rule  of  a  sectarian  majority  in 
their  boards  of  control,  testify  to  the  continuance  of  this 
movement.  Sectarian  hostility  is,  indeed,  still  strong  in 
some  parts  of  our  country.  It  resists  somewhat  the 
proper  development  of  the  state  universities  of  the 
North,  and  thus  far  absolutely  prevents  adequate  legisla- 
tive appropriations  to  the  state  universities  of  the  South. 
It  has  also  been  a  main  source  of  opposition  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  university  at  the  city  of  Washington,  which, 
though  proposed  by  Washington  himself,  and  supported 
by  nearly  every  president  since  his  time,  still  remains  in 
abeyance.  But  the  ideas  of  Thomasius  will  yet  bear 
fruits  in  these  fields  as  in  others.1 

His  death  came  in  1728.  He  had  looked  forward  to  it 
without  fear.  All  that  the  Church,  with  the  dogmas  then 
in  vogue,  could  do  to  increase  the  terrors  of  death  failed 
to  daunt  him.  Striking  was  his  selection  of  a  text  for  his 
own  funeral  sermon.     It  began  with  the  words  of  St.  Paul 

i  For  a  brief  but  excellent  treatment  of  Thomasius'  work  in  emancipating 
the  higher  instruction  in  the  German  universities  generally  from  ecclesiaa- 
ticism  and  theology,  see  Dernburg,  pp.  16,  et  seq. 


160  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

before  Felix:  " Neither  can  they  prove  whereof  they 
now  accuse  me;  but  this  I  confess  unto  thee,  that  after 
the  way  which  they  call  heresy  so  worship  I  the  God  of 
my  fathers."  x 

So  ended  a  life  precious  not  merely  to  Germany,  but 
to  universal  humanity.  Many  have  thought  it  unlovely. 
"We  naturally  expect  little  kindliness  or  serenity  of 
temper  in  a  man  so  continually  belligerent.  As  we  hear 
of  struggle  after  struggle,  fight  after  fight — of  war  per- 
petual— we  begin  to  suspect  him  as  a  dyspeptic,  or  an 
Ishmaelite.  To  the  present  writer,  standing  before  his 
portrait  in  the  great  hall  of  the  University  of  Halle,  and 
before  his  bust  in  the  University  of  Leipsic,  the  falsity 
of  this  theory  was  revealed.  The  face  is  large,  kindly — 
even  jovial:  it  is  the  face  of  a  man  keen  enough  to  see 
far  into  the  unreason  of  his  time,  and  bold  enough  to 
fight  it ;  not  dyspeptic,  never  vexed,  never  peevish,  never 
snappish;  but  large,  fearless,  strong,  determined,  per- 
sistent.2 

From  first  to  last  he  was  a  warrior.  Many  have 
thought  his  methods  too  drastic.  But  his  was  a  period 
when,  as  a  rule,  only  drastic  methods  could  avail — a  time 
like  that  when  Luther  began  his  work;  when  Richelieu 
and  Mirabeau  grappled  with  the  enemies  of  France; 
when  Cromwell  took  the  helm  in  England;  when  Wash- 
ington led  in  establishing  our  republic  and  Lincoln  led  in 
saving  it.  At  such  times  measures  apparently  the  most 
humane  are  often  in  reality  the  most  cruel.  When 
Christian  Thomasius  began  his  work,  " sweet  reason- 
ableness" was  absurd;  mild  methods  futile.  Only  a  man 
who  could  fling  himself,  and  all  that  he  was,  and  all  that 
he  hoped  to  be,  into  the  fight — who  could  venture  every- 

i  Acts  xxiv,  13,  14. 

2  An  excellent  copy  of  the  Halle  portrait,  painted  by  Charles  Burleigh, 
hangs  in  the  law  lihrary  at  Cornell, — between  the  portraits  of  Grotius  and 
Lord  Mansfield. 


THOMASIUS  161 

thing  and  continue  venturing  everything  until  the  last — 
could  really  be  of  use.  He  had,  doubtless,  the  defects 
of  his  qualities ;  but  he  did  his  work  for  Germany  and  for 
mankind.  He  was  the  second  of  the  three  great  re- 
formers in  Germany;  and,  at  his  death,  there  seemed  to 
come  a  transmigration  of  his  soul  to  the  third;  for,  a 
few  months  later,  in  that  same  part  of  Germany  in  which 
he  died,  was  born  Gotthold  Ephraim  Lessing. 


TUEGOT 


TUEGOT 

I 

"Wlien  the  flood  which  sweeps  through  modern  society,  and 
which  still  carries  with  it  good  and  evil,  shall  have  deposited  its 
impurities,  what  names  will  float  on  the  surface  of  the  quiet 
waters  ?  Who  will  then  be  considered  the  true  precursors  of  the 
modern  world? — those  who  gave  the  terrible  signal  call  for 
revolution,  or  those  who  have  wished  to  found  the  progressive 
reign  of  liberty  and  fraternity  among  men  by  peace,  by  the 
power  of  natural  order,  and  by  universal  harmony? 

— Leonce  de  Lavergne. 

IPEESENT  to-day  one  of  the  three  greatest  statesmen 
who  fought  unreason  in  France  between  the  close  of 
the  Middle  Ages  and  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Eevolu- 
tion — Louis  XI  and  Eichelieu  being  the  two  others.  And 
not  only  this :  were  you  to  count  the  greatest  men  of  the 
modern  world  upon  your  fingers,  he  would  be  of  the 
number — a  great  thinker,  writer,  administrator,  philan- 
thropist, statesman,  and,  above  all,  a  great  character  and 
a  great  man.  And  yet,  judged  by  ordinary  standards, 
a  failure.  For  he  was  thrown  out  of  his  culminating 
position,  as  Comptroller-General  of  France,  after  serv- 
ing but  twenty  months,  and  then  lived  only  long  enough 
to  see  every  leading  measure  to  which  he  had  devoted  his 
life  deliberately  and  malignantly  undone;  the  flagrant 
abuses  which  he  had  abolished  restored,  apparently  for- 
ever; the  highways  to  national  prosperity,  peace,  and 
influence,  which  he  had  opened,  destroyed;  and  his 
country  put  under  full  headway  toward  the  greatest 
catastrophe  the  modern  world  has  seen. 

165 


166  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Anne  Robert  Jacques  Turgot,  Baron  de  l'Aulne,  was 
born  in  1727,  of  a  family  not  only  noble  but  of  character- 
istics which  had  become  very  rare  among  the  old  French 
nobility. 

Several  of  his  ancestors  had  been  distinguished  for 
public  spirit  and  for  boldness  in  resisting  tyranny.  His 
father  had  been  Provost  of  the  Merchants  of  Paris,  or, 
as  we  might  say,  mayor  of  the  city,  for  a  longer  term 
than  had  any  of  his  predecessors,  and  had  won  fame  not 
only  by  enterprise  in  works  of  public  utility  but  by  resist- 
ing the  fury  of  mobs. 

The  son,  at  an  early  age,  showed  himself  worthy  of  this 
lineage.  As  a  boy  at  school  he  was  studious,  thoughtful, 
modest,  dutiful,  firm  in  resisting  evil ;  and  it  throws  light 
on  personal  tendencies  which  continued  through  his  life 
to  learn  that  his  pocket  money  was  quietly  lavished  upon 
those  of  his  fellows  who  were  meritorious  and  needy. 

Yet  his  condition  was  not  at  first  entirely  happy.  He 
was  diffident,  shy,  and  greatly  lacking  in  the  manners 
necessary  to  social  success.  In  all  lands  and  times, 
simple,  easy,  good  manners  have  been  of  vast  value  to  any 
young  man,  but  in  the  first  years  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV, 
manners  were  everything.  Reversing  the  usual  rule  in 
such  cases,  his  father  appreciated  and  admired  him,  but 
his  mother  misunderstood  him  and  had,  apparently,  little 
hope  for  his  future. 

Being  the  youngest  of  three  sons,  and  not  having  the 
qualities  necessary  to  success  at  court,  it  was  thought 
best  to  make  him  a  priest;  and,  after  a  very  successful 
course  in  two  of  the  best  lyceums  of  Paris,  he  was  sent 
to  the  seminary  of  Saint-Sulpice.  That  divinity  school 
included  among  its  professors,  then  as  ever  since,  many 
noble  and  earnest  men,  but  it  was,  of  course,  mainly 
devoted,  not  to  the  unbiased  search  for  truth,  but  to  the 
buttressing  of  dogmas. 

With  ninety-nine  young  men  in  a  hundred,  the  regime 


TURGOT  167 

then  applied  to  Turgot  produced  the  desired  effect.  The 
young  man  destined  for  an  ecclesiastical  career  was 
placed  within  walls  carefully  designed  to  keep  out  all 
currents  of  new  thought ;  his  studies,  his  reading,  his  pro- 
fessors, his  associates,  all  were  combined  to  keep  from 
him  any  results  of  observation  or  reflection  save  those 
prescribed :  probably,  of  all  means  for  stifling  healthy  and 
helpful  thought,  a  theological  seminary,  as  then  conducted 
— whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  Jewish  or  Moham- 
medan— was  the  most  perfect. 

The  greatness  of  Turgot  now  began  to  appear:  while 
he  performed  all  the  duties  of  the  seminary  and  studied 
thoroughly  what  was  required,  he  gave  himself  to  a  wide 
range  of  other  studies,  and  chiefly  in  two  very  different 
directions — to  thought  and  work  upon  those  problems  in 
religion  which  transcend  all  theologies,  and  upon  those 
problems  in  politics  which  are  of  vast  importance  in  all 
countries,  and  which  especially  needed  discussion  in  his 
own. 

But  the  currents  of  thought  which  were  then  sweeping 
through  Europe  could  not  be  entirely  kept  out  of  Saint- 
Sulpice.  The  French  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  in  full  strength.  Those  were  the  years  in 
which  Voltaire  ruled  European  opinion,  and  Turgot  could 
not  but  take  account  of  his  influence.  Yet  no  one  could 
apparently  be  more  unlike  those  who  were  especially 
named  as  the  French  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  He  remained  reverential;  he  was  never  blas- 
phemous, never  blatant;  he  was  careful  to  avoid  giving 
needless  pain  or  arousing  fruitless  discussion;  and,  while 
the  tendency  of  his  whole  thinking  was  evidently  remov- 
ing him  from  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Church,  his  was  a 
broader  and  deeper  philosophy  than  that  which  was  then 
dominant. 

As  to  the  two  main  lines  of  his  thinking,  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  his  first  important  literary  and  scholastic 


168  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

effort  was  a  treatise  On  the  Existence  of  God.  Few 
fragments  of  it  remain,  but  we  are  helped  to  understand 
him  when  we  learn  that  he  asserted,  and  to  the  end  of  his 
life  maintained,  his  belief  in  an  Almighty  Creator  and 
Upholder  of  the  Universe.  It  did,  indeed,  at  a  later 
period,  suit  the  purposes  of  his  enemies,  exasperated  by 
his  tolerant  spirit  and  his  reforming  plans,  to  proclaim 
him  an  atheist;  but  that  sort  of  charge  has  been  the 
commonest  of  missiles  against  troublesome  thinkers  in  all 
times. 

Theology  becoming  less  and  less  attractive  to  him,  he 
turned  more  and  more  toward  his  other  line  of  thought — 
upon  the  amelioration  of  the  general  wretchedness  in 
French  administration ;  and  he  now,  in  1749,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two,  wrote  to  one  of  his  school  friends  a  letter 
which  has  been  an  object  of  wonder  among  political 
thinkers  ever  since.  Its  subject  was  paper  money.  Dis- 
cussing the  ideas  of  John  Law,  and  especially  the  essay 
of  Terrasson  which  had  supported  them,  he  dissected 
them  mercilessly,  but  in  a  way  useful  not  only  in  those 
times  but  in  these. 

Terrasson 's  arguments  in  behalf  of  unlimited  issues 
of  paper  had  been  put  forth  in  1720.  He  revived  the  old 
idea  which  made  the  royal  mint  mark  the  essential  sign 
and  source  of  value,  and  he  declared  that  the  material 
used  for  bearing  the  sign  of  value  is  indifferent,  that  it 
pertains  to  the  ruling  monarch  to  determine  what  the 
material  object  bearing  this  sign  shall  be,  and  that,  if 
there  be  placed  in  circulation  a  sufficiency  of  such  objects 
thus  authorized,  the  people  thereby  secure  the  capital 
necessary  for  commercial  prosperity.1 

Warming  with  his  subject,  Terrasson  claimed  that 
paper  money  is  better  than  any  other,  and  that,  if  a 

1  For  a  very  early  cropping  out  of  this  error,  see  Duruy,  Hist  aire  des 
Romains,  tome  iv,  chapter  upon  Nero.  For  the  latest  appearances  of  it, 
see  sundry  American  publications  of  recent  years. 


TURGOT  169 

sovereign  issues  enough  of  paper  promises,  he  will  be 
able  to  loan  or  even  to  give  money  in  unlimited  amounts 
to  his  needy  subjects.1 

The  French  have  generally,  and  unfortunately,  gone  to 
the  extreme  length  of  their  logic  on  all  public  questions, 
and  Terrasson  showed  this  national  characteristic  by 
arguing  that,  as  business  men  constantly  give  notes  for 
very  much  greater  sums  than  the  amount  of  money  they 
have  on  hand,  so  the  government,  which  possesses  a  vir- 
tually unlimited  mass  of  property,  can  issue  paper  to  any 
amount  without  danger  of  depreciation.  One  premise 
from  which  this  theory  was  logically  worked  out  was  the 
claim  asserted  by  Louis  XIV,  namely,  that  the  king,  being 
the  incarnation  of  the  State,  is  the  owner  of  all  property 
in  the  nation,  including,  to  use  Louis's  own  words,  "the 
money  we  leave  in  the  custody  of  our  people. ' ' 2 

Terrasson  also  made  the  distinction  between  the  note 
of  a  business  man  and  notes  issued  by  a  government,  that 
the  former  comes  back  and  must  be  paid,  but  that  the 
latter  need  not  come  back  and  can  be  kept  afloat  forever 
by  simple  governmental  command,  thus  becoming  that 
blessed  thing — worshiped  widely,  not  many  years  since, 
in  our  own  country — "fiat  money." 

This  whole  theory,  as  dear  to  French  financial  schemers 
in  the  eighteenth  century  as  to  American  ' '  Greenbackers ' ' 
in  the  nineteenth,  had  resulted,  under  the  Orleans 
Eegency  and  Louis  XV,  in  ruin  to  France  financially  and 
morally,  had  culminated  in  the  utter  destruction  of  all 

iFor  the  arguments  of  Terrasson  and  other  supporters  of  John  Law's 
system,  see  the  Collection  d'ficonomistes  Francais,  Paris,  1851,  tome  i,  pp. 
608  et  seq.  For  his  "fiat-money"  idea,  see  Leonce  de  Lavergne,  Les  ficono- 
mistes  Francais  du  Dix-Huitidme  Siecle,  pp.  220,  221. 

2  For  the  theory  of  Louis  XIV  regarding  his  ownership  of  the  property 
of  his  subjects,  see  his  own  full  statement  in  Les  CEuvres  de  Louis  XIV, 
Paris,  1806,  tome  ii,  pp.  93,  94.  And  for  a  full  statement  of  his  whole 
doctrine  regarding  his  relations  to  the  State,  see  Laurent,  Etudes  sur 
VEistoire  de  VHumanite,  tome  xi,  pp.  9  et  seq. 


170        SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

prosperity,  the  rooting  out  of  great  numbers  of  the  most 
important  industries,  and  the  grinding  down  of  the  work- 
ing people  even  to  starvation. 

Never  was  there  a  more  perfect  demonstration  of  the 
truth  asserted  by  Daniel  Webster,  that,  of  all  contriv- 
ances for  defrauding  the  working  people  of  a  country, 
arbitrary  issues  of  paper  money  are  the  most  effective. 

Turgot's  attempt  was  to  enforce  this  lesson.  He 
showed  how  the  results  that  had  followed  Law's  issues 
of  paper  money  must  follow  all  such  issues.  As  regards 
currency  inflation,  Turgot  saw  that  the  issue  of  paper 
money  beyond  the  point  where  it  is  convertible  into  coin 
is  the  beginning  of  disaster — that  a  standard  of  value 
must  have  value,  just  as  a  standard  of  length  must  have 
length,  or  a  standard  of  capacity,  capacity,  or  a  standard 
of  weight,  weight.  He  showed  that  if  a  larger  amount 
of  the  circulating  medium  is  issued  than  is  called  for  by 
the  business  of  the  country,  it  will  begin  to  be  discredited, 
and  that  paper,  if  its  issue  be  not  controlled  by  its  relation 
to  some  real  standard  of  value,  inevitably  depreciates,  no 
matter  what  stamp  it  bears.1 

Out  of  this  theory,  simple  as  it  now  seems,  Turgot 
developed  his  argument  with  a  depth,  strength,  clearness, 
and  breadth  which  have  amazed  every  dispassionate 
reader  from  that  day  to  this.  It  still  remains  one  of  the 
best  presentations  of  this  subject  ever  made;  and  what 
adds  to  our  wonder  is  that  it  was  not  the  result  of  a  study 
of  authorities,  but  was  worked  out  wholly  from  his  own 
observation  and  thought.  Up  to  this  time  there  were  no 
authorities  and  no  received  doctrine  on  the  subject;  there 
were  simply  records  of  financial  practice  more  or  less 
vicious ;  it  was  reserved  for  this  young  student,  in  a  letter 
not  intended  for  publication,  to  lay  down  for  the  first  time 

i  See  Turgot,  CEuvres,  in  the  Collection  d'ficonomistes,  Paris,  1844,  torn*, 
iii,  pp.  04  et  seq.;  also,  Neymarck,  Turgot  ct  ses  Doctrines,  Paris,  1885, 
pp.  10,  11. 


TURGOT  171 

the  great  law  in  which  the  modern  world,  after  all  its 
puzzling  and  costly  experiences,  has  found  safety. 

His  was,  indeed,  a  righteous  judgment  on  the  past  and 
an  inspired  prophecy  of  the  future.  For,  refusing  to 
heed  his  argument  the  French  people  had  again  to  be 
punished  more  severely  than  in  John  Law's  time:  the 
over-issue  of  assignats  and  mandats  during  the  Revolu- 
tion came  forty  years  after  his  warning ;  and  paper  money 
inflation  was  again  paid  for  by  widespread  bankruptcy 
and  ruin.1 

For  similar  folly,  our  own  country,  in  the  transition 
from  the  colonial  period,  also  paid  a  fearful  price;  and 
from  a  like  catastrophe  the  United  States  has  been  twice 
saved  in  our  time  by  the  arguments  formulated  by 
Turgot.2 

Having  taken  his  bachelor's  degree  in  theology  at 
Saint-Sulpice,  he  continued  his  studies  at  the  Sorbonne, 
the  most  eminent  theological  institution  in  Europe.  The 
character  of  this  institution  was  peculiar.  It  had  come 
to  be  virtually  a  club  of  high  ecclesiastics  united  with  a 
divinity  school.  Around  the  quadrangle  adjoining  the 
sumptuous  church  which  Eichelieu  had  made  his 
mausoleum,  were  chambers  for  a  considerable  number  of 
eminent  theologians,  and  for  a  smaller  number  of  divinity 
students  of  high  birth,  great  promise,  or  especial  in- 
fluence. Though  fallen  from  its  highest  estate,  its 
prestige  was  still  great.  Its  modes  of  instruction,  its 
discussions,  its  public  exercises,  futile  though  they  often 

i  For  a  short  account  of  the  Assignats  and  Mandats  of  the  French  Eevo- 
lution,  see  Fiat  Money  Inflation  in  France,  How  it  Came,  What  it  Brought, 
and  How  it  Ended,  by  Andrew  D.  White  (New  York:  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 
1896).  For  a  more  extended  treatment  of  the  subject,  see  Levasseur,  His- 
toire  des  Classes  Ouvrieres  avant  1789,  liv.  i,  chap.  vi. 

2  The  very  remarkable  speeches  of  Mr.  Garfield,  afterward  President  of 
the  United  States,  which  had  so  great  an  influence  on  the  settlement  of 
the  inflation  question  throughout  the  Union,  were  on  the  main  lines  laid 
down  in  Turjrot's  letter. 


172  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

were,  certainly  strengthened  many  men  intellectually,  but 
generally  in  ways  not  especially  helpful  to  their  civic 
development.  With  Turgot  it  was  otherwise.  He  soon 
won  the  respect  and  admiration  of  all  in  the  establishment 
by  his  moral  earnestness,  by  his  intellectual  vigor,  by  the 
thoroughness  of  his  general  studies,  and  by  his  devotion 
to  leading  lines  of  special  study,  theological  and  political. 

So  rapid  was  this  recognition  that  within  six  months 
of  his  entrance  at  the  Sorbonne  his  position  as  a  scholar 
and  thinker  was  recognized  in  a  manner  most  significant : 
he  was  elected  by  his  associates  to  be  their  Prior — the 
highest  distinction  they  could  offer. 

It  thus  became  his  duty  to  deliver  two  discourses :  one 
on  taking  office,  and  one  several  months  later. 

The  subject  of  the  first  of  these  was  "The  Services 
rendered  to  the  "World  by  Christianity."  In  this  he  laid 
stress  upon  the  morality  developed  by  the  Christian 
religion,  upon  its  ideals  and  its  practices  as  compared 
with  those  of  the  pagan  world,  upon  its  nobler  view 
of  the  relations  of  mankind  to  God  and  to  one  another, 
upon  the  beneficent  impulses  which  had  proceeded  from 
it,  upon  the  salutary  restraints  it  had  imposed,  upon 
its  incidental  benefits  to  science,  and  upon  the  new  fields 
it  had  given  to  literature  and  art.  But  to  its  theological 
garb — its  dogmas,  forms,  observances,  and  even  to  its 
miraculous  sanctions — there  was  hardly  a  reference. 

His  environment  did,  indeed,  cause  him  to  make  a  few 
perfunctory  limitations  and  concessions,  but  throughout 
the  whole  discourse  he  showed  clearly  that  he  disliked 
proselytism,  and  abhorred  intolerance.  Noteworthy  was 
it  that  his  tributes  were  paid,  not  to  churchmanship,  but 
to  Christianity.  Curious,  as  showing  the  ideas  of  his 
time,  is  his  reference  to  the  architectural  triumphs  of 
the  Koman  Empire.  Speaking  especially  of  the  circus 
and  amphitheatre  as  monuments  of  Roman  skill,  power, 
greatness,  and  inhumanity,  he  bursts  forth  into  an  apos- 


TURGOT  173 

troplie:  "How  much  more  I  love  those  Gothic  edifices 
designed  for  the  poor  and  the  orphans!  Monuments  of 
the  piety  of  Christian  princes  and  of  religion :  even  though 
your  rude  architecture  repels  us,  you  will  always  be 
dear  to  tender  hearts."  Here  is  manifest  the  spirit 
shown  at  that  same  period  by  the  wife  of  John  Adams, 
who,  when  she  passed  Canterbury  Cathedral,  had  no 
thought  of  entering,  but  compared  it,  in  appearance,  to 
a  prison ;  and  the  spirit  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  who,  while 
he  adored  a  ruined  classic  temple — the  Maison  Carree 
at  Nimes — drove  for  days  through  eastern  France,  so 
rich  in  cathedrals  and  churches,  and  never  noticed 
them. 

Many  expressions  give  evidence  of  Turgot's  keen 
vision.  Of  certain  philosophers  he  speaks  as  "in- 
different to  the  gross  errors  of  the  multitude,  but  misled 
by  their  own,  which  had  only  the  frivolous  advantage  of 
subtlety. ' ' 

This  discourse,  while  causing  misgivings  among  the 
older  theologians,  increased  his  influence  among  the 
younger;  even  sundry  bishops  and  archbishops  ex- 
pressed almost  boundless  admiration  for  him.  But  their 
tributes  seem  to  have  had  no  injurious  effect  upon  him; 
they  seem  only  to  have  increased  his  zeal  in  seeking 
truth  and  his  power  in  proclaiming  it. 

Some  months  later  came  his  second  discourse — its 
subject  being  "The  Successive  Advances  of  the  Human 
Mind." 

This  was  vastly  superior  to  his  earlier  effort, 
especially  in  originality,  breadth,  and  clearness.  Its 
fundamental  idea  was  that  the  human  race,  under  the 
divine  government,  is  steadily  perfecting  itself.  In 
view  of  the  discouragements  and  disenchantments  the 
world  has  encountered  since  that  day,  it  is  difficult  to 
appreciate  the  strength  of  this  belief;  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  it  inspired  and  sustained  him  throughout 


174  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

all  his  labors  and  disappointments,  even  to  the  end  of 
his  life.  In  combination  with  this  was  his  fundamental 
idea  on  the  philosophy  of  history,  given  in  these  words : 
"  All  the  ages  are  linked  together  by  a  sequence  of  causes 
and  effects  which  connects  the  existing  state  of  the  world 
with  all  that  has  preceded  it." 

No  doubt  that,  as  to  its  form,  there  was  a  hint  from 
Bossuet's  famous  discourse  on  universal  history;  but  in 
Turgot's  work  one  finds  a  freedom  and  breadth  of  vision 
greater  by  far  than  had  been  shown  in  any  other  histori- 
cal treatise  up  to  his  time.  In  every  part  of  it  were 
utterances  which,  though  many  of  them  have  now  become 
truisms,  were  then  especially  illuminative.  One  passage 
shows  a  striking  foresight.  Speaking  of  colonial  sys- 
tems, he  develops  an  idea  of  Montesquieu,  and  says: 
"Colonies,  like  fruits,  are  only  held  fast  to  the  trees  up 
to  the  time  of  their  maturity.  Having  become  ripe,  they 
do  that  which  Carthage  did,  and  which  America  will 
one  day  do."  Thus  was  the  American  Eevolution 
prophesied  by  Turgot  in  1750,  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
century  before  leading  American  patriots  began  to  fore- 
see it.  Bear  in  mind  that  Franklin  denied  a  tendency  in 
America  toward  independence  very  nearly  up  to  the  time 
of  the  Declaration,  and  that,  less  than  two  years  before 
the  Declaration,  Washington  wrote  that  independence 
was  desired  by  no  thinking  man  in  America.1 

In  close  relations  with  this  second  discourse  were  Tur- 
got's sketches  in  Universal  History  and  Geography. 
Only  fragments  of  these  remain,  but  they  give  us  the 
torso  of  a  great  philosophic  and  historic  creation.    As 

1  For  the  famous  prophecy  regarding  America,  see  Turgot,  (Euvres, 
tome  ii,  p.  602,  in  the  Collection  d'Economistes,  tome  iv. 

For  an  excellent  statement  regarding  the  reluctance  of  leading  Ameri- 
can thinkers — both  Whigs  and  Tories — to  foresee  independence,  and  espe- 
cially for  the  attitude  of  Franklin  and  Washington  toward  the  question, 
see  M.  C.  Tyler,  Literary  History  of  the  American  Revolution,  vol.  i,  pp. 
458  ff. 


TURGOT  175 

in  all  his  writings  in  this  field,  the  fundamental  idea  was 
that  the  development  of  the  human  race  goes  on,  ever, 
by  the  methods  and  toward  the  goal  fixed  by  the  Al- 
mighty, and  is  proof  of  the  divine  forethought  and  wis- 
dom. While  one  does  not  find  in  it  the  confident  theo- 
logical statements  of  the  first  Sorbonne  discourse,  the 
theistic  view  is  never  lost.  Eegarding  this  work,  the  most 
sober  and  restrained  among  all  the  modern  historians  of 
France  declares,  "There  is  nothing  greater  in  the  eight- 
eenth century  than  Turgot's  plea  against  Eousseau,  re- 
garding the  tendency  and  high  destiny  of  universal  hu- 
manity." * 

In  taking  account  of  Turgot's  writings,  both  at  this 
period  and  during  his  after  life,  his  early  training  may 
well  be  noted.  It  not  only  included  a  vast  range  of  gen- 
eral reading,  but  the  foundation  of  the  whole  was  the  best 
discipline  and  culture  to  be  obtained  from  mathematical 
and  classical  studies,  while  not  neglecting  natural  his- 
tory. Like  Lord  Bacon,  he  seemed  "to  take  all  knowl- 
edge for  his  province."  With  leading  philosophers  of 
his  time  he  corresponded  on  even  terms.  As  to  mathe- 
matics and  astronomy,  he  occupied  himself  at  various 
periods,  even  to  the  end  of  his  life,  with  the  works  of 
such  princes  in  that  realm  as  Newton,  Euler,  and  their 
disciples;  as  to  natural  science,  he  interested  himself 
especially  in  geology  and  kindred  studies,  and  corre- 
sponded with  Buffon ;  as  to  the  classics,  the  range  of  his 
reading  was  astonishing,  and,  as  to  his  facility  in  Latin, 
it  may  be  mentioned  that  the  two  great  discourses  at  the 
Sorbonne,  as  well  as  other  writings  during  his  scholastic 
life,  were  first  written  and  delivered  in  that  language. 
In  this  field  bloomed  one  of  the  flowers  of  modern  Latin 
poetry:  his  tribute  to  Franklin, — 

"Eripuit  caelo  fulmen  sceptrumque  tyrannis." 
1  Henri  Martin,  Histoire  de  France,  tome  xvi,  p.  186. 


176  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Of  all  tributes  ever  paid  to  the  American  philosopher, 
this  line  undoubtedly  sped  farthest  and  struck  deepest. 

As  to  modern  languages  other  than  his  own,  he  made 
extended  translations  of  leading  English  and  German 
writers.  Light  is  thrown  upon  his  character  by  the  fact 
that  he  wrote  out,  carefully,  Pope's  Universal  Prayer. 

On  leaving  the  Sorbonne,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three 
years,  he  was  confronted  by  the  question  as  to  his  future 
profession.  This  he  solved  at  once,  declaring  that  he 
could  not  enter  the  priesthood,  and  that  he  purposed  de- 
voting himself  to  the  law  and  the  civil  service. 

From  this  decision  several  of  his  companions  sought  to 
dissuade  him.  They  had,  apparently,  no  more  belief  in 
the  dominant  theology  than  had  Turgot.  Though  they 
were  under  the  influence  of  the  eighteenth-century  phi- 
losophy, they  evidently  held  that  the  great  mass  of  people 
can  never  rise  above  the  current  beliefs  of  their  time, 
and  that  certain  men  are  appointed  to  control  them  by 
means  of  these  beliefs,  and  to  be  well  rewarded  for  this 
control.  They  held  up  to  Turgot  the  prospect  of  wealth 
and  power  in  the  ecclesiastical  career,  showed  him  that 
the  most  lofty  positions  in  the  Church  would  be  his,  and, 
knowing  his  patriotic  aspirations,  they  especially  dis- 
played his  opportunities  in  these  positions  to  be  of  use 
to  his  country. 

To  all  this  Turgot  made  a  reply  which  has  passed  into 
history.  Thanking  his  friends  for  their  efforts,  he  said, 
''Take  for  yourselves,  if  you  like,  the  counsels  which  you 
give  me,  since  you  feel  able  to  do  so.  Although  I  love 
you,  I  cannot  understand  how  you  are  able  to  do  it.  As 
to  myself,  it  is  impossible  for  me  duriug  my  whole  life 
to  wear  a  mask."  1 

i  Various  efforts  have  been  made  to  show  that  this  reply  by  Turgot,  in 
view  of  his  Sorbonne  discourse  and  other  contemporary  utterances,  is 
probably  legendary;  but  the  testimony  of  Dupont  de  Nemours  is  explicit, 
and  there  is  no  better  authority.     The  statement  made  by  Condorcet  in  his 


TURGOT  177 

Here  these  friends  separated.  Of  those  who  became 
ecclesiastics,  and  sought  to  persuade  Turgot  to  do  like- 
wise, were  Very,  later  Grand  Vicar  of  Bourges;  De 
Cice,  afterward  a  bishop;  Boisgelin,  who  became  an 
archbishop  and  a  cardinal;  and,  above  all,  Lomenie  de 
Brienne,  who  secured  the  utmost  of  place  and  pelf  which 
an  ecclesiastic  could  obtain  in  France:  two  archbishop- 
rics, a  cardinal's  hat,  the  post  of  Prime  Minister,  and, 
finally,  retirement  after  merited  political  failure,  with 
the  plunder  of  several  abbeys  and  the  unbounded  scorn 
of  every  right-thinking  Frenchman  from  those  days  to 
these. 

It  may  be  remarked  here  that  Brienne 's  effort  to  com- 
bine his  "philosophic"  views  with  the  duties  of  a  high 
ecclesiastic  brought  him  to  ruin.  Rebuked  by  Pius  VI, 
he  flung  back  to  the  Pope  his  cardinal's  hat;  but  not  all 
his  concessions  to  the  Revolution  could  save  him  from 
its  devotees ;  he  died  in  1793  in  prison  at  Sens,  the  seat 
of  his  second  archbishopric,  after  cruel  insults  from  his 
revolutionary  jailers, — the  only  doubt  being  whether  he 
died  as  a  result  of  their  cruelty  or  by  his  own  hand.1 

On  the  announcement  of  Turgot 's  decision,  he  was,  to 
all  appearance,  speedily  left  behind  by  his  old  associates ; 
but,  in  his  new  field,  his  moral  and  intellectual  force  rap- 
Tie  de  Turgot  seems  to  strengthen  rather  than  to  weaken  Dupont's  ac- 
count. Strangest  of  all,  on  the  side  of  those  who  prefer  to  think  these 
words  legendary,  is  the  argument  by  August  Oneken,  Professor  at  Berne, 
who  urges  that,  as  Turgot  was  not  an  atheist,  and,  as  some  of  the  highest 
dignitaries  in  the  Church  at  that  time  did  not  hesitate  to  avow  atheism, 
there  was  no  reason  why  Turgot  should  make  such  a  remark.  This  argu- 
ment would  seem  fully  to  refute  itself.  Nothing,  in  view  of  Turgot's 
moral  character,  could  be  more  likely  under  these  very  circumstances  than 
such  an  utterance.  It  ought,  also,  to  be  said  that,  valuable  as  Oncken's 
book  may  be,  there  is,  in  all  its  treatment  of  the  physiocrats  and  Turgot, 
far  too  much  of  that  de  haut  en  has  style  so  often  to  be  observed  in  refer- 
ences to  a  Frenchman  of  genius  by  a  German  of  talent.  See  Oneken, 
Geschichte  der  D ationalokonomie,  Leipzig,  1902,  p.  436. 

1  See  Biographie  Universelle,  article  "Lomenie."  Also  Rae,  Life  of 
Adam  Smith,  pp.  177,  178. 


178  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

idly  won  him  promotion.  Modest  and  quiet  though  he 
was,  he  must  have  had  from  the  first  a  consciousness  of 
his  abilities.  This  was  never  shown  offensively — indeed, 
it  may  be  justly  said  that  it  was  never  shown  at  all ;  but 
one  thing  he  could  not  but  show,  and  this  was  his  deep 
sense  of  responsibility  for  the  use  of  his  powers  in  every 
station  to  which  they  lifted  him.  Never  at  any  time  was 
he  the  prostitute  attorney  who  from  that  day  to  this  has 
burdened  the  world,  never  a  venal  defender  of  criminals, 
never  a  partner  of  marauders,  never  a  hireling  sup- 
porter of  men  and  measures  injurious  to  his  country 
or  to  mankind.  Well  did  Malesherbes  say  that  devotion 
to  the  public  good  was  in  him  "not  merely  a  passion, 
but  a  rage." 

Higher  and  higher  positions  were  opened  to  him.  In 
accepting  them,  there  is  ample  evidence  that  his  motives 
were  patriotic;  but  one  such  acceptance  cost  him  dear. 
The  Parliament  of  Paris,  which  had  played  so  large  and 
so  noxious  a  part  in  French  history,  had  become  intol- 
erable. Like  the  twelve  other  French  parliaments,  its 
real  functions  were  judicial;  yet,  in  spite  of  this,  it  had 
long  usurped  legislative  and,  at  times,  something  very 
like  executive  functions.  With  occasionally  a  good  thing 
to  its  credit,  it  had  long  been  a  curse  to  the  country. 
When  the  sovereign  was  strong  it  had  usually  groveled ; 
when  he  was  weak  it  had  usually  rebelled.  It  had  finally 
endeavored  to  block  a  series  of  absolutely  necessary  re- 
forms, had  been  banished  from  Paris,  and  a  new  court 
had  been  established  in  its  place.  Into  this  court  Turgot 
had  been  called,  and  had  accepted  the  position;  but 
thereby  he  aroused  the  bitter  hatred  of  various  old  mem- 
bers and  parasites  of  the  Parliament,  and  among  these 
was  no  less  a  personage  than  Choiseul, — perhaps  the 
most  powerful  intriguer  since  Cardinal  Mazarin. 

Engrossing  as  was  his  professional  work,  Turgot  still 
devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  all  questions  whose  solu- 


TURGOT  179 

tion  was  important  for  France, — whether  within  or  with- 
out his  official  duties.  We  find  him  constantly  engaged 
in  thorough  research  and  profound  thought,  not  only 
on  political  and  administrative  problems,  but  on  great 
questions  in  science,  in  philosophy,  and  in  literature. 

Of  all  he  wrote  at  that  early  period,  by  far  the  most 
interesting  to  the  general  scholar  were  his  discourses 
and  his  drafts  of  elaborate  treatises  upon  universal  his- 
tory and  political  geography.  These  show  an  amazing 
breadth  of  knowledge,  and  a  no  less  wonderful  grasp  of 
the  significance  of  events,  especially  in  their  bearing  on 
human  progress.  They  impress  themselves  deeply  on 
the  reader,  not  only  by  their  matter,  but  by  their  style. 
Out  of  the  innumerable  pungent  expressions  of  weighty 
truths  in  them,  one  may  be  cited  as  containing  food  for 
reflection  in  America  of  the  twentieth  century, — "Greed 
is  the  ambition  of  barbarians." 

He  did  not  lose  himself  in  these  broader  views  of 
human  destiny ;  he  constantly  studied  the  practical  prob- 
lems rising  in  his  own  country, — most  of  all,  those  which 
pertained  to  public  administration;  and  in  this  latter 
field  also  he  became  more  and  more  widely  known 
throughout  France,  and  indeed  through  Europe. 
The  French  Encyclopedic,  so  powerful  in  bringing  in 
a  new  epoch,  gives  striking  evidence  of  the  vast- 
ness  of  his  fields  of  thought  and  of  his  thorough- 
ness in  cultivating  them.  He  wrote  several  of  its 
most  valuable  articles,  and,  while  their  subjects  lay  in 
widely  differing  provinces,  all  were  recognized  as  author- 
itative, and  each  took  high  rank  as  combining  the  best 
results  of  wide  observation,  wise  reflection,  close  crit- 
icism, illuminating  thought,  and  thorough  sympathy  with 
the  best  currents  of  opinion  flowing  through  his  time. 

But  the  most  directly  important  in  the  series  of  writ- 
ings thus  begun  were  those  upon  Toleration. 
About  the  year  1753  the  ecclesiastical  power  in  France 


180  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

was  making  every  effort  to  restore  the  old  persecuting 
policy  of  Louis  XIV.  That  policy  had  culminated  in  the 
Kevocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  involving  enormous 
cruelty  to  the  best  part  of  the  middle  classes,  the  exile 
of  the  most  thoughtful  manufacturers  and  their  adher- 
ents, with  a  transfer  of  various  great  industries  to  rival 
nations.  Thus  began  an  evil  epoch  in  France,  which  is, 
indeed,  not  yet  fully  finished.  The  injury  thereby  done 
has  been  not  only  material,  but,  even  to  a  greater  degree, 
political  and  moral.  When  one  considers  the  history  of 
Germany,  England,  and  the  United  States,  it  seems  cer- 
tain that,  had  that  vast  body  of  Huguenots  who  were 
driven  by  the  bigotry  of  Louis  XIV  into  those  countries 
been  allowed  to  remain  in  their  own,  the  Jacobin  phase 
of  the  French  Eevolution  and  all  the  ruin  and  misery 
which  that  and  the  various  despotisms  following  it  in- 
flicted upon  France  would  have  been  impossible.1 

After  that  monstrous  intolerance  there  had,  indeed, 
come  a  milder  policy,  but  in  Turgot's  time  there  had  set 
in  a  reaction  against  this,  and  a  large  body  of  courtiers 
were,  by  clerical  influence  and  ecclesiastical  pressure, 
brought  over  to  the  idea  of  restoring  the  old  system  of 
persecution,  and  were  doing  their  best  to  bring  Louis 
XV  into  it.  Against  all  this  Turgot  wrote  his  Letters 
on  Toleration,  and  his  Conciliator.  As  a  motto  for  the 
latter  he  took  the  noble  words  of  Fenelon:  "No  human 
power  can  destroy  the  liberty  of  the  affections.  When 
kings  interfere  in  matters  of  religion,  they  do  not  pro- 
tect it, — they  enslave  it."  He  then  showed  cogently  the 
reasons  why  toleration  was  true  statesmanship:  that  in 
matters  of  belief  neither  right  nor  expediency  sanctions 

i  For  a  most  careful  and  thorough  statement  of  the  injury  done  to 
French  interests  by  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  see  Levasseur, 
Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvrieres  et  de  V Industrie  en  France,  avant  1189, 
deuxieme  edition,  vol.  ii,  pp.  344  et  seq. 


TURGOT  181 

state  interference,  and  that  toleration  should  be  carried 
to  the  farthest  point  possible. 

Especially  characteristic  are  the  first  words  of  his  first 
letter.  They  embody  the  doctrines  which  in  the  nine- 
teenth and  twentieth  centuries  have  taken  possession  of 
all  the  really  great  powers  of  the  world.  These  words 
are  as  follows:  "You  demand  'what  is  the  protection 
which  the  state  ought  to  give  to  the  dominant  religion  V 
I  answer,  speaking  exactly  to  the  point,  'No  religion  has 
the  right  to  demand  any  other  protection  than  liberty, 
and  it  loses  its  rights  to  this  liberty  when  its  doctrines 
or  worship  are  contrary  to  the  interest  of  the  state.'  "  * 

He  then  goes  on  to  argue  that  the  only  cases  in  which 
the  State  has  a  right  to  take  cognizance  of  dogmas  are 
those  where  clear,  direct  results  upon  the  public  safety 
are  concerned.  Hence,  he  argues  the  right  to  exclude 
polygamy.  But  he  constantly  takes  pains  to  show  that 
a  government  should  be  slow  in  concluding  that  the  prac- 
tical results  of  any  dogma  are  injurious.  While  con- 
stantly respectful  to  the  religion  in  which  he  had  been 
nurtured,  he  urges  the  establishment  of  a  system  of 
education  which  shall  make  moral  men  and  good  citizens, 
leaving  to  the  Church  the  teaching  of  religion. 

Of  course,  all  this  led  to  resistance.  In  spite  of  his 
efforts  to  make  every  possible  concession  to  the  clergy 
consistent  with  the  welfare  of  his  country,  their  leaders 
now  began  to  treat  him  as  an  enemy.  Despite  his  deeply 
religious  nature,  which  always  kept  him  from  the  aggres- 
sive excesses  of  Voltaire,  and  the  French  philosophers 
generally,  he  was  none  the  less  marked  as  an  object  of 
ecclesiastical  hatred ;  and  from  that  day  to  this  he  has  been 
maligned  by  the  representatives  of  those  he  thus  angered. 
Even  in  recent  years,  a  venomous  biography  of  him  in 
pamphlet  form  has  been  spread  throughout  France.    The 

i  See  Turgot,  CEuvres,  tome  ii,  p.  675. 


182  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

men  who  accomplished  this  piece  of  work  thought,  doubt- 
less, that  they  were  doing  a  service  to  the  Church. 
Possibly  they  were;  for  this  libel  upon  Turgot,  revered 
as  he  finally  is  by  every  thinking  French  patriot,  is  un- 
doubtedly one  of  the  causes  which  have  in  our  own  time 
produced  the  most  effective  of  all  French  revolts  against 
clerical  sway, — the  abolition  of  the  teaching  congrega- 
tions and  the  divorce  of  the  French  Church  from  the 
State. 

In  all  these  writings  Turgot  was  at  his  best, — clear, 
strong,  and  effective.  His  plea  for  toleration  became  at 
once  a  main  agency  in  ending  all  plans  and  intrigues  to 
entangle  Louis  XV  in  the  persecuting  policy  of  Louis 
XIV.  In  this,  as  in  his  other  arguments,  there  was  a 
remarkable  depth  and  breadth  of  thought,  with  quiet 
force  in  expression.  Here  and  there  they  take  an  epi- 
grammatic form,  but  never  at  the  cost  of  truth.  There 
are  pithy  statements,  cogent  phrases,  illuminating  sum- 
maries, but  all  permeated  by  an  earnestness  which  forces 
conviction, — as  no  utterances  of  a  venal  advocate  could 
ever  do.  Their  ability  and  honesty  carried  them  far. 
Through  Frederick  the  Great  they  made  a  triumphant 
entrance  into  Germany;  through  Franklin  and  Jefferson 
they  entered  America;  through  Cavour  they  took  pos- 
session of  Italy;  and  through  Waldeck-Rousseau  and 
Combes  they  have  won  France. 

Mention  should  be  made  here  of  Turgot's  ideas  on 
education.  His  presentation  of  this  subject,  like  that  of 
his  views  on  many  other  subjects,  had  begun  in  private 
letters  to  honored  friends;  his  earlier  thoughts  upon  it 
being  given  in  his  correspondence  with  a  gifted  writer, 
Mademoiselle  Graffigny.  The  roots  of  many  of  them  are 
to  be  found  in  Locke,  but  their  best  development  is  his 
own.  Very  striking  is  his  treatment  of  the  Rousseau 
ideas  which  became  such  an  affliction  to  the  world  a  t'l-w 
years  later.     With  his  usual  clearness  of  vision,  Turgot 


TURGOT  183 

forewarned  France  against  that  hotbed  of  folly,  the 
" State  of  Nature"  theory,  in  which  were  to  sprout  the 
sentirnentalisni  and  ferocity  of  the  Reign  of  Terror,  with 
Robespierre  as  its  most  gaudy  flower. 

During  this  period,  also,  Turgot  was  deepening  and 
extending  his  study  of  political  economy.  Up  to  his 
time  hardly  a  germ  had  appeared  of  the  modern  science 
of  economics,  and  little  if  any  practical  recognition  of 
those  truths  in  political  economy  which  are  considered 
in  this  century  as  fundamental.  These  problems  had 
now  become  crucial.  The  fate  of  the  monarchy  was 
hanging  upon  them.  Colbert,  the  greatest  of  the  min- 
isters of  Louis  XIV,  and  the  most  devoted  to  French 
interests,  had,  indeed,  carried  on  what  was  called  the 
" mercantile  system,"  but  that  was  simply  the  building 
up  of  favored  industries, — a  makeshift  system  which  con- 
sidered all  competing  nations  as  enemies  to  be  bullied, 
cajoled,  or  crushed. 

Colbert,  as  Comptroller-General,  had  stood  at  the  head 
of  French  industry  as  a  great  manufacturer  stands  at 
the  head  of  his  mill;  grasping,  conceding,  using  cunning 
or  force  as  the  case  might  seem  to  need.  His  was  a 
system  carried  out  by  innumerable  edicts,  decrees,  regu- 
lations, often  conflicting,  always  leading  to  much  trouble 
within  France,  planting  the  seeds  of  terrible  war  between 
France  and  her  neighbors.  This  system  it  was  which 
had  most  to  do  with  bringing  on  the  exhausting  war 
with  the  Netherlands,  which  finally  entangled  and  embar- 
rassed every  leading  European  power,  and  brought 
France  to  the  verge  of  bankruptcy.1 

Bad  as  this  system  was,  its  evils  were  mitigated  as 
long  as  a  really  great  man  like   Colbert  stood  at  its 

i  For  a  brief  but  fair  judgment  of  Colbert  and  his  policy,  see  Adam 
Smith,  Wealth  of  Nations,  chap,  ix;  and  for  a  not  less  impartial  but  far 
more  thorough  judgment,  see  Levasseur,  Bistoire  des  Classes  Ouvrieres,  as 
above,  tome  ii,  chap.  iii. 


184  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

centre;  but  after  him  its  results  speedily  showed  them- 
selves to  all  men;  and  finally,  under  the  Regency  and 
Louis  XV,  his  successors,  without  either  his  genius  or 
his  honesty,  brought  France  to  wretchedness.  Of  these, 
the  Abbe  Terray  was  an  example.  Terray's  only  effort 
had  been  to  squeeze  out  of  the  nation  the  largest  sums 
possible  for  the  king  and  court,  without  regard  to  the 
public  interest.  Some  industries  were  protected  into 
debility,  others  were  taxed  out  of  existence.  Loans  were 
raised  without  regard  to  the  danger  of  bankruptcy ;  more 
and  more,  under  him,  was  developed  utter  carelessness 
regarding  national  financial  honor. 

One  of  the  consequences  of  this  system  is  especially 
instructive.  Certainly  no  system  is  so  costly  as  one 
which  tampers  in  the  slightest  degree  with  national 
credit.  So  it  proved  in  this  case.  State  loans  could  be 
obtained  only  at  rates  of  interest  which  would  make  up 
to  the  lender  not  only  the  proper  usance,  but  the  risks 
rising  from  the  caprices  of  ministers,  the  trickery  of 
courtiers,  and  the  general  want  of  financial  probity. 

Even  while  this  system  held  full  sway,  various  think- 
ers had  stirred  new  thought  on  economic  doctrines  as 
applied  to  the  national  administration.  Early  among 
these  was  Locke,  but  the  first  man  who  began  effectively 
to  lay  a  basis  for  the  modern  science  of  political  econ- 
omy in  France  was  Quesnay.  He  had  contributed  arti- 
cles to  the  Encyclopedie,  especially  upon  agriculture  and 
the  regulation  of  the  grain  trade;  and  these  articles 
attracted  attention  and  formed  a  school  of  thinkers. 
Gradually  there  was  brought  together  a  body  of  patriotic 
and  thoughtful  men  who  cared  little  for  the  prizes  held 
out  by  court  favor,  but  much  for  the  substantial  pros- 
perity of  their  country:  these  were  known  as  the  "Econ- 
omists," or,  more  widely  and  permanently,  as  the 
"Physiocrats." 

In  the  thinking  of  these  men  lay  some  fallacies.     A 


TURGOT  185 

natural  reaction  from  the  mercantile  policy  of  Colbert  led 
them  to  lay  stress  almost  entirely  upon  the  agricultural 
interest.  They  believed  the  soil  the  only  source  of  real 
wealth,  agriculture  the  only  productive  labor,  and  all 
other  forms  of  labor  to  be  essentially  different  from  agri- 
culture, as  not  adding  to  real  values. 

Mistaken  as  their  theory  was,  and  injurious  as  it  at 
times  became  in  the  legislation  of  the  years  following, 
its  defects  were  far  more  than  atoned  for  by  the  real 
contributions  which  they  made  to  economic  science.  In 
their  whole  history  we  see  a  striking  evidence  of  the  truth 
that  exact  statements  of  fact  do  far  more  good  than  mis- 
taken theories  can  do  harm.  Indeed,  their  mistaken  doc- 
trine was  vastly  outweighed  for  good  by  another  on 
which  they  laid  special  stress:  this  was  that  the  main 
trust  of  nations  should  be,  as  far  as  possible,  in  indi- 
vidual initiative, — in  the  general  good  sense  and  ability 
of  men  to  look  better  after  their  own  interests  than  any 
government  or  any  functionary  can  do. 

This  idea,  that  governments  should  govern  as  little  as 
possible,  was  a  force  sure  to  produce  good  effects  in  that 
chaos  of  general  and  local  powers,  general  and  provin- 
cial tariffs,  monopolies,  special  privileges,  interferences 
of  functionaries,  and  governmental  meddling  of  every 
sort.  The  Economists  first  planted  in  the  modern  world 
the  idea  of  commercial  and  industrial  liberty  as  both 
right  and  expedient;  more  than  any  other  thinkers  they 
enforced  the  statement  that  "every  man  should  be  al- 
lowed to  buy  or  sell  when  he  pleases,  where  he  pleases,  as 
he  pleases,  and  as  much  or  as  little  as  he  pleases."  They 
first  gave  to  the  world  that  formula  which  has  since  exer- 
cised such  power  in  the  political  economy  of  France  and 
of  the  world:     "Laissez  faire,  laissez  passer." 

AVith  Colbert,  carefully  planned  regulation  from  the 
centre  of  government  had  been  everything;  with  Quesnay 
and  his  followers  toward  the  end  of  Louis  XV 's  reign, 


186  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

liberty  for  manufactures  and  trade  was  everything.  With, 
men  of  the  former  school,  that  government  was  best 
which  governed  most ;  with  men  of  this  new  school,  that 
government  was  best  which  governed  least. 

The  Economists  naturally  won  Turgot's  sympathy. 
In  that  seething  mass  of  courtiers,  ecclesiastics,  sham 
statesmen,  tax  contractors,  venal  lawyers,  and  mistresses, 
— all  pushing  for  place  and  pelf  without  regard  to  the 
future  of  their  country — it  was  inevitable  that  he  should 
turn  to  the  only  body  of  true  men  and  strong  thinkers 
who  really  had  at  heart  the  interests  of  France.  One  of 
these,  Gournay,  had  an  especially  happy  influence  upon 
him.  Gournay  had  been  made  Intendant  of  Commerce, 
and  his  duties  obliged  him  to  travel  through  various 
provinces  of  France,  in  order  to  study  commercial  inter- 
ests, and  the  condition  of  the  people.  During  two  years 
Turgot  accompanied  him  on  these  journeys  and  devoted 
himself  to  the  practical  questions  constantly  arising,  thus 
becoming  familiar  with  the  needs  of  all  classes  and  the 
best  ways  of  meeting  them.  Although  Gournay  died  a 
few  years  later,  his  influence  over  Turgot  remained. 
Well  has  one  of  Turgot's  recent  biographers  said:  "Al- 
most every  social  and  every  economic  improvement  in 
Europe  and  America  for  the  last  hundred  years  or  more 
has  had  its  germ  in  the  teachings  of  men  who  belonged 
to  that  early  school  of  French  Economists."1 

And  here  let  me  commend  the  example  of  Turgot  and 
Gournay  to  American  students  who  may  be  ambitious  to 
take  part  in  public  life.  To  such  I  would  say,  having 
developed  your  powers  by  the  best  means  accessible,  bring 
yourselves  early  in  touch  with  men  as  they  are,  with 
facts  as  they  are,  with  problems  to  be  actually  solved, 
and  with  practical  solutions  of  them.  As  early  in  your 
career  as  possible  get  yourselves  placed  on  town  boards, 

i  See  Stephens,  Life  of  Turgot,  p.  65. 


TURGOT  187 

county  boards,  grand  and  petit  juries.  De  Tocqueville 
was  right  when  he  pointed  out  jury  duty  as  a  great 
political  education  in  this  republic.  Study  men  and 
things  in  town  meetings,  in  county  sessions,  in  public 
institutions  created  to  deal  with  evil  and  develop  good. 
But,  while  thus  keeping  in  relations  with  every-day  prac- 
tice, do  something  by  reading  and  reflection  to  keep  your- 
selves abreast  of  the  higher  thinking  on  political  and 
social  questions.  Mingle  with  your  practical  observa- 
tions study  and  reading  in  history,  political  economy, 
and  social  science,  under  the  best  guides  you  can  find. 
In  these  days  our  leading  universities,  seeking  to  send 
out  into  public  service  men  who  shall  unite  practical 
knowledge  with  the  higher  thinking,  seem  our  best  agen- 
cies for  sane  progress  and  our  best  barriers  against  in- 
sane whimsies.  James  Bryce,  the  most  competent  for- 
eign observer  of  American  affairs  since  De  Tocqueville, 
has  cogently  supported  this  view. 

But,  while  Turgot  sympathized  with  the  Physiocrats, 
even  in  some  of  their  errors,  he  never  surrendered  to 
them  or  to  any  sect,  religious,  philosophical,  or  economic, 
his  full  liberty  of  thought.  One  of  the  most  striking  pas- 
sages in  all  his  writings  is  his  discussion  of  the  sect 
spirit,  and  it  can  be  read  with  quite  as  much  profit  in  the 
twentieth  century  as  in  the  eighteenth.  He  says:  "It 
is  the  sect  spirit  which  arouses  against  useful  truths 
enemies  and  persecutions.  When  an  isolated  person 
modestly  proposes  what  he  believes  to  be  the  truth,  he 
is  listened  to  if  he  is  right,  and  forgotten  if  he  is  wrong. 
But  when  even  learned  men  have  once  formed  themselves 
into  a  body,  and  say  ewe/  and  think  they  can  impose  laws 
upon  public  opinion,  then  public  opinion  revolts  against 
them,  and  with  justice,  for  it  ought  to  receive  laws  from 
truth  alone,  and  not  from  any  authority.  Every  such 
society  sees  its  badge  worn  by  the  stupid,  the  crack- 


188  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

brained,  and  the  ignorant,  proud  in  joining  themselves  to 
it  to  give  themselves  airs."  1 

In  1761  came  one  of  the  main  turning  points  in 
Turgot's  career.  His  merits  had  so  generally  aroused 
attention  that  the  ministry  now  determined  to  avail  them- 
selves of  them,  and  he  was  made  Intendant  of  Limoges. 

The  "intendancies,"  or  " generalities,"  were  among 
the  most  effective  organizations  developed  by  the  absolute 
monarchy  in  France  in  its  effort  to  make  head  against 
the  manifold  and  monstrous  confusions  which  finally 
brought  on  the  Revolution. 

To  all  appearance,  the  old  provinces — dating  from  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  earlier — were  the  important  divisions 
of  France,  and  the  men  placed  over  them  as  governors 
were  the  most  showy  figures  in  local  administration ;  but, 
in  fact,  these  governors  were,  as  a  rule,  courtiers  sent 
to  the  various  provincial  capitals,  sometimes  as  a  reward, 
sometimes  as  a  riddance.  The  really  important  divisions 
had  become  the  ''generalities,"  or  "intendancies,"  which 
had  been  carved  out  of  the  old  provinces.  To  take 
charge  of  these  it  was  thought  best  to  have  men  who 
knew  something  and  could  do  something.  Turgot,  though 
hampered  badly  by  the  central  authority  at  Paris  and 
Versailles,  thus  became,  in  a  sense,  viceroy  over  an  im- 
portant part  of  central  France.  Though  the  work  set 
before  him  in  this  capacity  might  well  seem  thankless, 
he  gladly  embraced  it.  With  his  ability  and  knowledge 
he  might  have  shone  in  the  salons  of  the  capital  as  a  man 
of  science  or  letters, — but  there  was  a  chance  here  to 
render  a  service  to  his  country  by  showing  what  could  be 
done  in  carrying  out  better  ideas  of  administration,  and 
this  determined  his  choice. 

i  See  quotation  in  Higgs,  History  of  the  Physiocrats,  p.  14. 


II 

THE  district  to  which  Turgot  now  gave  thirteen  of 
the  best  years  of  his  life  was  one  of  the  poorest 
and  most  neglected  in  France.  Authentic  pictures  of  it 
during  the  period  before  his  intendancy  are  distressing: 
the  worst  abuses  of  absolutism  and  feudalism  had  en- 
joyed full  and  free  course, — with  poverty,  ignorance,  and 
famine  as  their  constant  results.  The  Marquis  de  Mira- 
beau  declared  that  the  food  of  the  peasantry,  as  a  rule, 
was  buckwheat,  chestnuts,  and  radishes;  that  there  was 
no  wheat  bread,  no  butcher's  meat;  that  at  best  the 
farmer  killed  one  pig  a  year;  that  the  dwellings  of  the 
peasantry  were  built  of  raw  clay  roofed  with  thatch, — 
without  windows,  with  the  beaten  ground  as  a  floor, — 
and  that  their  clothes  were  rags.  Taine  tells  us  that 
there  were  no  ploughs  of  iron,  that  in  many  cases  the 
plough  of  Virgil's  time  was  still  in  use.1  Boudet  de- 
clares: "Everything  in  these  God-forsaken  countries 
reflected  the  image  of  ignorance  and  barbarism,  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century."  One  expression  in 
a  letter  from  Turgot  to  a  rural  functionary  throws  light 
upon  the  intellectual  condition  of  the  people:  he  says, 
"I  have  seen  with  pain  that  in  some  parishes  the  curate 
alone  has  signed,  because  no  one  else  could  write."  And 
Turgot  follows  this  with  exhortations  to  spread  the  rudi- 
ments of  an  ordinary  education.2 

His  first  care  in  this  new  position  was  to  secure  thor- 
ough and  trustworthy  information.  To  this  end  he  set 
at  work  every  agent  under  his  control  or  influence,  and 

i  This  may  well  be;  for  the  present  writer  saw,  in  1856,  in  various  parts 
of  Italy,  the  plough  described  by  Virgil. 

2  See  citations  in  Stephens,  Life  of  Turgot,  pp.  26-32. 

189 


190  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

sought  not  only  accurate  knowledge  of  conditions,  but 
the  widest  possible  acquaintance  with  men.  Especially 
striking  were  his  friendly  letters  to  the  parish  priests: 
though  differing  from  them  in  religious  theories,  he  be- 
sought their  aid  in  behalf  of  a  better  system  among  the 
people  at  large.  Nothing  could  exceed  his  kindly  sym- 
pathy with  them  and  the  shrewdness  and  tact  of  his  ques- 
tions; and  to  the  credit  of  the  French  rural  priesthood 
it  must  be  said  that  they  were  won  by  Turgot's  evident 
devotion  to  their  poverty-stricken  parishioners,  and  that 
they  effectively  aided  him  in  his  efforts  to  know  the 
exact  condition  of  every  part  of  the  intendancy  and  to 
secure  acquaintance  with  vast  numbers  of  men,  even 
among  the  humblest,  who  had  ability  or  real  character. 

He  infused  his  spirit  also  into  his  official  agents.  Ad- 
dressing the  officers  of  police  of  Limoges,  he  said,  "The 
way  to  succeed  is  to  reply  with  suavity  and  in  detail  to 
the  popular  complaints  you  every  day  hear, — to  speak 
more  in  the  language  of  reason  than  in  that  of  authority." 

Turgot's  first  grapple  was  with  the  taille,  or  land  tax. 
No  tax  could  have  been  more  unjustly  laid:  the  nobility 
and  clergy  virtually  escaped  it,  and  it  therefore  fell  with 
crushing  force  upon  the  middle  and  lower  classes. 

He  was  powerless  to  abolish  it,  but,  in  every  way  pos- 
sible, he  mitigated  it.  It  had  become  absurd,  both  in  its 
character  and  administration.  Local  men  of  influence 
used  every  sort  of  intrigue  to  escape  it ;  inequalities  and 
injustice  made  it  especially  obnoxious  to  the  poorer  and 
weaker  classes.  Turgot  wrought  steadily  to  mitigate  the 
exactions  of  the  central  government,  and,  though  his 
representations  were  never  wholly  yielded  to,  they  at 
least  lightened  the  burden.  He  also  sought  to  secure  real 
information  as  to  the  exact  ability  of  every  community, 
and,  indeed,  of  every  unit  in  each  community  throughout 
his  intendancy,  to  bear  taxation;  but  efforts  to  abolish 
the  taille  he  was  obliged  to  reserve  for  a  later  period. 


TURGOT  191 

Not  only  were  these  great  taxes  imposed  with  injustice; 
they  were  collected  with  inhumanity.  The  duty  of  col- 
lecting this  and  other  taxes  known  as  "direct"  was 
forced  upon  unpaid  peasants  and  other  men  of  small 
means  in  a  way  which  often  brought  them  to  ruin.  Fun- 
damental in  the  practice  of  the  time  was  the  personal 
responsibility  of  collectors  for  the  whole  tax  of  their  dis- 
tricts, and  the  added  responsibility  of  selected  taxpayers 
for  the  total  amount  required:  all  being  responsible  for 
the  taxation  of  each,  and  each  for  the  taxation  of  all. 
For  this  state  of  things  Turgot  substituted  within  his 
jurisdiction  a  system  of  collectors  carefully  selected  and 
suitably  paid,  and  in  various  other  ways  he  greatly 
mitigated  the  hardships  of  the  older  practice.1 

Still  another  of  his  efforts,  which  proved  to  be  far 
more  successful,  and  which  set  an  example  to  France  and, 
indeed,  to  the  world,  was  his  dealing  with  the  royal  corvee 
for  public  works.  It  had  been  devised  first  under  feudal- 
ism ;  it  had  then  been  carried  still  further  by  the  central 
monarchical  government  as  an  easy  means  of  financial 
oppression.  Against  feudal  corvees,  Turgot  could  do 
little  or  nothing,  but  his  main  attack  was  upon  the  royal 
corvee.  This  consisted  mainly  of  two  parts:  first,  the 
making  and  repairing  of  the  public  roads,  and,  secondly, 
the  transportation  of  military  stores — and  all  by  the 
forced  labor  of  the  peasantry.  The  immediate  result  of 
this  system  as  regards  the  public  works  had  been  that 
they  were  wretched, — the  roads  almost  impassable  in  bad 
weather, — and  their  cost  enormous.  This  outcome  of 
that  old  French  system  we  can  understand  by  looking  at 
a  similar  method  in  various  parts  of  our  own  country. 
Probably  in  few  other  parts  of  the  civilized  world  have 

i  For  a  very  full  and  lucid  statement  of  the  classification  and  imposition 
of  the  taxes  before  the  Revolution  in  France,  see  Esmein,  Histoire  du 
Droit  Francois,  Paris,  1901,  pp.  573  et  seq.  For  a  brief  but  especially- 
clear  summary,  see  Rambaud,  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  Frangaise,  Paris, 
1897,  chap.  ix. 


192  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

roads  been  so  bad  as  in  the  state  of  New  York,  and  the 
main  cause  of  this  is  a  survival  of  this  same  old  system 
by  which  the  rural  population  were  required  to  construct 
the  highways,  and  allowed  to  make  them  as  badly  as  the 
most  narrow-minded  of  them  pleased. 

But  this  was  the  least  of  evils  under  the  French  system. 
Bad  as  was  the  condition  of  the  public  roads,  it  was 
better  than  the  condition  of  the  peasants  themselves: 
they  were  liable  to  be  withdrawn  from  their  work  at  any 
moment  in  order  to  repair  the  roads  for  the  passage  of 
this  magnate  or  that  body  of  soldiers.  To  make  mat- 
ters worse,  there  came  the  transportation  of  military 
stores  and  munitions, — an  even  more  disheartening  bur- 
den: no  matter  how  occupied  their  farm  animals  might 
be,  army  material  of  every  sort  must  be  transported  at 
a  moment's  warning,  nominally  at  about  one-fourth  of 
what  would  have  been  a  fair  compensation, — really,  in 
most  cases,  without  compensation  at  all.  The  loss  of 
effective  labor  and  the  disabling  of  their  beasts  of  burden 
became  fearfully  oppressive:  cases  are  authentically 
mentioned  where  the  farmers  of  large  districts  were  left 
after  such  corvees  virtually  without  draught  animals. 

Against  this  whole  system  Turgot  won  a  victory.  For 
the  corvees  he  substituted  a  moderate  tax,  and,  instead  of 
building  roads  after  the  old  shiftless  plan,  he  had  them 
made  in  accordance  with  the  specifications  of  good  engi- 
neers, under  carefully  drawn  contracts;  with  the  result 
that  throughout  his  intendancy  a  network  of  highways 
was  developed  better  than  any  others  then  known  in 
France,  and  at  a  cost  far  below  the  sums  which  had  pre- 
viously been  wasted  upon  them. 

Closely  connected  with  these  measures  was  the  break- 
ing down  of  barriers  to  internal  commerce.  One  can 
hardly  believe  in  these  days  the  perfectly  trustworthy 
accounts  of  the  French  internal  "protective"  system  in- 
those.     Typical  is  the  fact  that  on  the  Loire  between 


TURGOT  193 

Orleans  and  Nantes,  a  distance  of  about  two  hundred 
miles,  there  were  twenty-eight  custom-houses;  and  that 
between  Gray  and  Aries,  on  the  rivers  Saone  and  Rhone, 
a  distance  of  about  three  hundred  miles,  the  custom- 
houses numbered  over  thirty,  causing  long  delays,  and 
taking  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  per  cent  in  value  of  all 
the  products  transported. 

Pathetic  and  farcical  is  the  story  of  M.  Blanchet's 
wine, — a  true  story.  M.  Blanchet  bought  a  quantity  of 
wine  in  the  extreme  south  of  France,  intending  to  bring 
it  to  Paris.  At  the  chief  village  of  each  little  district 
duties  were  levied  upon  it,  not  only  for  the  municipality, 
but  for  various  individuals.  At  Nevers  five  separate  and 
distinct  tariffs  were  levied, — one  for  the  Due  de  Nevers, 
one  for  the  mayor  and  town  council,  one  for  each  of  two 
privileged  nobles,  and  one  for  the  bishop.  At  Poids  de 
Fer  four  different  tariffs  were  imposed,  at  Cosne  two, 
and  so  on,  at  place  after  place,  single,  double,  triple,  or 
even  more  numerous  duties  by  towns,  lords  spiritual, 
lords  temporal,  monasteries,  nunneries,  and  the  like, 
along  the  whole  distance.1 

To  break  down  such  barriers  as  these,  Turgot  exerted 
himself  to  the  utmost;  and,  in  logical  connection  with 
these  efforts,  he  obtained  in  1763  a  declaration  from  the 
king  permitting  free  trade  in  grain,  followed  during  the 
next  year  by  another  edict  to  the  same  purpose.  In 
thus  declaring  against  an  internal  protective  system, 
especially  as  regards  agriculture,  he  braved  a  deep-seated 
public  opinion.  Every  province  insisted  that,  when 
Heaven  had  given  it  a  good  crop,  it  should  have  the  main 
enjoyment  of  that  crop,  and  that,  whether  crops  were 

i  For  the  customs  duties  on  the  Loire  and  elsewhere,  see  Levasseur, 
Eistoire  des  Classes  Ouvrieres,  etc.,  as  above,  tome  ii,  p.  83.  For  a  multi- 
tude of  instructive  details,  see  Taine,  The  Ancient  Regime,  Durand's  trans- 
lation, book  v,  chap.  ii.  For  Blanchet's  wine,  see  the  detailed  account  given 
in  Stourm,  Les  Finances  de  VAncien  Regime  et  de  la  Revolution,  tome  i, 
pp.  473-474. 
13 


194  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

good  or  bad,  the  only  safety  from  famine  was  in  the 
existing  system  of  " protection." 

To  educate  public  opinion,  Turgot  wrote,  in  1764,  his 
Letters  on  Free  Trade  in  Grain.  They  were  mainly  pre- 
pared during  official  journeys,  and  dashed  off  at  country 
inns.  It  was  a  hard  struggle.  Of  all  things  done  by 
him  during  the  Limoges  period  these  letters  and  the 
effort  to  put  their  ideas  into  practice  brought  upon  him 
the  most  bitter  opposition.  From  the  Abbe  Terray  down 
to  the  people  who  suffered  most  by  the  old  order  of 
things,  all  attacked  him.  There  came  mobs  and  forcible 
suppression  of  them.  But  Turgot,  braving  the  bitter  op- 
position both  of  theorists  and  of  mobs,  insisted  that  the 
consecrated  system  of  interfering  with  the  free  circula- 
tion of  grain  throughout  the  kingdom  was  one  of  the 
greatest  causes  of  popular  suffering;  and  while  this  argu- 
ment of  his  had  but  a  temporary  effect  at  that  period,  it 
afterward  did  more  than  anything  else  to  prepare  the 
French  mind  for  the  final  breaking  up  of  that  whole  sys- 
tem of  internal  protection, — with  the  result  that  famines 
disappeared  from  France  forever. 

In  close  relation  to  this  was  his  direct  grapple  with 
famine,  in  1771  and  1772.  Famines  in  various  parts  of 
continental  Europe  were  frequent  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages  and,  indeed,  down  to  the  French  Revolution;  and 
they  were  produced  by  the  same  causes  which  underlie 
the  frequent  and  terrible  famines  in  Russia  to-day :  igno- 
rance, superstition,  want  of  public  spirit,  want  of  that 
knowledge  in  agriculture  and  political  economy  necessary 
to  maintain  a  suitable  supply,  want  of  discernment  be- 
tween harassing  regulations  which  increase  the  evil  and 
the  liberty  which  prevents  it. 

The  measures  which  Turgot  took  in  his  house-to-house 
and  hand-to-hand  struggle  against  peasant  starvation 
are  given  in  detail  by  various  biographers,  and  they 
present  a  wonderful  combination  of  sound  theory  with 


TURGOT  195 

common-sense  practice.  These  measures  proved  to  be 
more  successful  than  those  of  any  other  intendant  in 
France;  and  it  is  worthy  of  note  that,  in  the  midst  of 
all  the  severe  labors  which  this  effort  imposed  upon  him, 
he  was  steadily  on  his  guard  to  prevent  the  people  from 
becoming  beggars.  The  ingenuity  of  his  devices  to  avoid 
this  evil  makes  them  worthy  of  study  even  in  our  day. 
Nor  should  his  private  efforts  to  aid  the  starving  be  for- 
gotten :  in  these  he  not  only  exhausted  his  own  immediate 
resources,  but  incurred  personal  debts  to  the  amount  of 
twenty  thousand  livres. 

Of  especial  value  also  were  his  exertions  to  improve 
the  wretched  agriculture  of  the  country.  In  various  ways 
he  stimulated  agricultural  studies;  he  introduced  new 
food  plants  and  grasses,  and,  with  these,  the  potato. 
Here  came  curious  opposition,  not  only  in  France,  but  in 
other  countries.  It  was  claimed  that  potatoes  ought  not 
to  be  eaten,  because  they  produced  leprosy,  and  also 
because  no  mention  of  them  was  made  in  Scripture.  By 
a  world  of  pains,  and  especially  by  inducing  the  upper 
classes  to  adopt  potatoes  as  a  part  of  their  diet,  he  at  last 
wore  away  these  prejudices;  but  to  aid  in  overcoming 
them  finally  no  less  a  personage  than  the  king  himself 
was  induced  to  order  the  new  vegetable  served  at  his  own 
table. 

An  evil  with  which  he  then  grappled — in  some  respects 
the  most  serious  of  all — was  the  prevailing  militia 
system.  It  greatly  injured  not  only  the  industry,  but 
the  personal  character,  of  the  people.  Its  whole  adminis- 
tration by  the  nobility  who  commanded  in  the  various 
regiments  was  barbarously  cruel,  and  of  all  the  evils 
which  beset  the  peasantry  of  France  this  service  was  the 
most  detested.  Exemptions  from  it  were,  indeed,  many, 
but  they  were  entirely  in  favor  of  the  upper  classes. 
So  dreaded  did  the  drawing  of  militiamen  become  that 
young  men,  in  great  numbers,  deserted  the  villages,  and 


196  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

large  country  districts  were  at  times  thus  crippled  for 
want  of  laborers.  Those  who  had  been  so  fortunate  as 
not  to  be  chosen  then  joined  in  the  chase  of  those  who 
had  drawn  unlucky  numbers,  and  innumerable  petty  wars 
were  thus  promoted. 

Turgot  dealt  with  this  subject  after  his  usual  fashion: 
he  studied  it  carefully,  appealed  to  the  peasantry 
judiciously,  secured  volunteers  by  bounties,  and  made 
the  whole  system  not  only  less  obnoxious,  but  appreciated 
as  never  before  by  those  whose  temperaments  best  fitted 
them  for  army  life.  Closely  connected  with  the  other 
evils  of  the  militia  system  was  the  custom  of  billeting 
troops  upon  the  inhabitants — resulting  in  endless  con- 
flicts and  immoralities.  Turgot  constructed  barracks, 
kept  the  troops  in  them,  and  thus  relieved  his  people 
materially  and  morally.1 

Hardly  less  fruitful  were  his  efforts  to  stimulate  and 
extend  manufactures.  To  him,  in  large  measure,  is  due 
the  creation  of  that  vast  porcelain  industry  at  Limoges, 
which,  in  our  own  time,  largely  in  the  hands  of  Americans, 
has  produced  works  of  ceramic  art  hardly  equaled  in 
beauty  or  value  by  those  of  any  nation  outside  of  France. 

But  his  efforts  had  a  wider  scope.  While  struggling 
thus  to  save  and  improve  the  people  of  his  intendancy,  he 
was  constantly  writing  reports,  most  carefully  thought 
out,  to  clear  the  vision  and  improve  the  methods  of  the 
ministry  at  Paris,  and  these  have  remained  of  great  value 
ever  since.  Noteworthy  is  the  fact  that  when  Napoleon 
took  in  hand  the  administration  of  France  his  main 
studies,  in  preference  to  all  else  that  he  had  received  from 
the  old  French  monarchy,  were  these  reports  and  discus- 
sions of  Turgot.2 

i  For  striking  revelations  of  the  militia  horrors,  see  Taine,  Ancient 
Rigime,  book  v,  chap.  iv. 

2  See  Daire,  Introduction  to  the  CEuvres  de  Turgot,  p.  Iviii ;  and,  for  Tur- 
got's  Reports  on  Mines  and  Quarries,  etc.,  etc.,  see  the  CEuvres,  tome  ii,  pp. 
130,  et  seq. 


TURGOT  197 

So  great  was  Turgot's  success  in  making  bis  govern- 
ment an  oasis  in  the  desert  of  French  rural  misery  that 
it  finally  became  a  matter  of  interest,  not  only  in  France, 
but  throughout  Europe.  This  led  his  friends  to  urge 
upon  him  other  and  more  lucrative  positions,  among  these 
the  intendancy  of  Lyons.  But  all  such  attempts  he  dis- 
couraged. He  felt  that  it  was  more  important  to  show 
France  what  could  be  done  by  carrying  out  a  better 
system  in  some  one  province,  no  matter  how  poor;  and 
all  personal  considerations  yielded  to  this  feeling. 

While  thus  abolishing  throughout  his  intendancy  some 
of  the  worst  oppressions  of  the  absolute  monarchy,  he  was 
steadily  mitigating  feudal  evils.  Worthy  of  special  note 
is  it  that  down  to  this  period,  hardly  twenty  years  before 
the  Eevolution,  the  nobility  not  only  persisted  in  all  the 
monstrous  exactions  which  had  been  developed  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  took  advantage  of  famine  to  sell 
agricultural  produce  to  their  peasants  at  starvation 
prices,  to  break  the  agreements  which  they  had  made  with 
them,  and  to  evade  contributing  to  save  them  from 
starvation.  Against  this  Turgot  exerted  himself  to  the 
utmost,  straining  his  authority  even  beyond  its  legal 
limits,  until  he  had  forced  the  great  landed  proprietors  to 
treat  their  peasantry  with  more  humanity.  To  do  this, 
of  course,  endangered  his  position.  The  nobility  natu- 
rally had  friends  at  court,  and  through  these  they  made 
the  corridors  and  salons  of  Versailles  resound  with  their 
outcries  against  his  interference. 

It  would  seem  that  in  all  this  heavy  work  he  would  have 
found  full  scope  for  his  ability.  Not  so.  During  this 
period  he  found  time  to  write  essays  and  treatises  which 
have  exerted  a  happy  influence  upon  France  and  upon 
Europe  from  that  day  to  this. 

As  the  first  and  greatest  of  these  should  be  mentioned 
his  treatise,  "On  the  Formation  and  Distribution  of 
Wealth."     It  was  written  in  1766  and  published  about 


198  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

three  years  later.  Though  he  accepted  the  fundamental 
fallacy  of  his  fellow  economists  in  making  agriculture  the 
sole  source  of  real  production,  this  work  was  fruitful  in 
good.  Even  his  errors,  resulting,  as  they  did,  from 
honest  thinking,  led  men  to  the  discovery  of  new  truths. 

Perhaps  its  greatest  result  was  the  stimulus  it  gave 
to  Adam  Smith,  who  shortly  after  it  was  written  visited 
France,  made  acquaintance  with  leading  Physiocrats,  in- 
cluding Turgot,  and  about  ten  years  later,  in  1776,  pub- 
lished that  work  which  Buckle  declares  "  probably  the 
most  important  book  ever  written,"  the  Wealth  of 
Nations.1 

Regarding  the  relations  of  Turgot  to  Adam  Smith 
growths  of  partisanship  have  sprung  up,  many  of  them, 
on  either  side,  more  rank  than  just.  Of  this  there  is  not 
the  slightest  need.  "While  we  may  recognize  the  fact  that 
Buckle,  in  his  panegyric  of  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations, 
forgot  Grotius's  Be  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis,  and  while  one 
of  the  latest  and  most  competent  editors  of  the  Wealth 
of  Nations  acknowledges  that  its  author  "was  greatly 
indebted  to  the  Economists,"  and  that  "in  the  first  book, 
important  passages  will  be  found  which  are  almost 
transcripts  from  Turgot 's  divisions  and  arguments," 
we  must  agree  that  Smith's  place  is  secure  among  the 
foremost  benefactors  of  the  modern  world,  and  that 
Turgot,  though  his  arguments  were  presented  in  a  differ- 
ent form  and  manner,  stands  close  beside  him.1  But, 
while  a  place  in  the  front  rank  must  be  assigned  to 
Adam  Smith,  and  while  it  must  be  conceded  that  he 

i  Buckle  makes  this  assertion  twice,  and  to  his  first  declaration  adds  that 
the  work  "is  certainly  the  most  valuable  contribution  ever  made  by  a 
single  man  towards  establishing  the  principles  on  which  government 
should  be  based."  (History  of  Civilization  in  England,  American  Edition, 
vol.  i,  chap,  ivj  vol.  ii,  chap,  vi.)  For  interesting  particulars  of  the  inter- 
course between  Adam  Smith  and  the  Physiocrats,  including  his  opinion  of 
Turgot,  see  Rae,  Life  of  Adam  Smith,  London,  1895,  chap.  xiv. 

i  See  Thorold  Rogers,  Introduction  to  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations,  Oxford, 
1880,  chap,  xxiii. 


TUEGOT  199 

cleared  political  economy  of  Physiocratic  error  regarding 
the  relation  of  agriculture  to  the  production  of  wealth,  it 
is  only  just  to  keep  in  mind  that,  ten  years  before  Adam 
Smith's  book  appeared,  Turgot,  as  one  of  the  most  fair 
and  competent  of  American  economists  has  shown,  made 
the  first  analysis  of  distribution  into  wages,  profits,  and 
rent,  discussed  the  distribution  of  labor,  the  nature  and 
employment  of  capital,  and  the  doctrine  of  wages,  gave 
the  main  arguments  for  free  trade  and  free  labor,  laid 
down  some  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  taxation,  and 
asserted  very  many  other  doctrines  precious  to  the 
modern  world — and  that  he  did  this  with  a  force  and 
clearness  to  which  Smith  never  attained. 

In  forming  an  opinion  of  the  characteristics  and  claims 
of  these  two  great  men,  it  may  well  be  taken  into  account 
that  while  Smith's  work  was  the  result  of  inductions  from 
facts  observed  during  his  whole  life  and  passed  upon 
during  twenty  years  of  steady  labor  on  these  and  similar 
subjects,  the  work  with  which  Turgot  preceded  him  was 
struck  out  in  the  thick  of  all  his  vast  labors  as  Intendant 
of  Limoges  and  as  adviser  to  the  central  government 
of  France  on  a  multitude  of  theoretical  and  practical 
questions,  and  that  it  was  written,  not  as  an  elaborate 
treatise,  but  simply  as  a  letter  to  two  gifted  Chinese 
students,  who,  having  studied  for  a  period  in  France,  were 
returning  to  their  native  land.  Each  of  the  two  works 
has  vast  merits,  but,  as  an  exhibition  of  original  power, 
that  of  Turgot  unquestionably  stands  first.1 

i  For  the  statement  above  referred  to,  see  Seligman,  review  of  Leon  Say's 
"Turgot,"  Political  Science  Quarterly,  vol.  iv,  p.  180,  cited  by  R.  P.  Shep- 
herd in  his  Turgot  and  the  Six  Edicts,  p.  32,  which  also  contains  a  short 
but  able  discussion  of  the  arguments  between  the  partisans  of  Smith  and 
of  Turgot.  Also  John  Morley,  Crit.  Misc.,  vol.  ii,  p.  149.  For  perhaps  the 
most  magnanimous,  concise,  and  weighty  of  all  tributes  to  Adam  Smith, 
see  E.  Levasseur,  UEconomie  Politique  au  College  de  France,  in  La  Revue 
des  Cours  Litteraires  for  December  20,  1879.  For  details  regarding  the 
two  Chinese  students,  see  Neymarck,  Turgot  et  ses  Doctrines,  tome  ii,  pp. 
345,  346. 


200  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Still  another  treatise  in  this  same  field  of  Turgot's 
activity  was  his  Loans  at  Interest,  published  in  1769.     An 
attempt   made   within   his    district   to    defraud    sundry 
bankers  by  accusing  them  of  charging  too  high  a  rate  of 
interest  caused  him  to  take  up  the  whole   subject  of 
usance.     For  ages,  France,  like  the  rest  of  Europe,  had 
suffered  from  the  theological  theory  opposed  to  the  taking 
of  interest  for  money.     From  sundry  texts  of  Scripture, 
from  Aristotle,  from  such  fathers  of  the  Eastern  Church 
as  St.  Basil,  St.  Chrysostom,  and  St.  Gregory  of  Nyssa, 
from  such  fathers  of  the  Western  Church  as  St.  Ambrose, 
St.  Augustine,  and  St.  Jerome,  from  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
the  foremost  of  mediaeval  thinkers,  from  Bossuet,  the 
most  eminent  of  all  French  theologians,  from  Pope  Leo 
the  Great  and  a  long  series  of  Popes  and  Councils,  and 
from   a  series   almost   as   long  of   eminent   Protestant 
divines,  had  come  a  theory  against  the  taking  of  interest 
for  money,  and  this  had  been  enforced  by  multitudes  of 
sovereigns  in  all  parts  of  Christendom. 

The  results  had  been  wretched.  The  whole  policy  of 
the  Church  having  favored  the  expending  of  capital,  there 
was  far  less  theological  opposition  to  waste  and  extrava- 
gance than  to  that  investment  of  capital  at  interest  with- 
out which  no  great  progress  of  industry  is  possible. 

Turgot's  method  of  dealing  with  this  question  took 
high  rank  af  once,  and,  despite  the  authoritative  treatises 
of  Bentham  and  of  Jean  Baptiste  Say,  which  appeared 
more  than  twenty  years  afterward,  his  may  be  accounted, 
on  the  whole,  the  most  original  and  cogent  work  in  the 
whole  series  of  arguments  which  have  obliged  all  branches 
of  the  Christian  Church  to  change  their  teachings,  and 
all  civilized  governments  to  change  their  practice,  re- 
garding the  taking  of  interest  for  money.1 

i  See  Leon  Say,  Turgot,  Anderson's  translation,  p.  88;  also  Morley  and 
Stephens. 

For  the  passages  from  which  the  theological  doctrine  regarding  interest 


TURGOT  201 

The  last  of  Turgot's  important  writings  during  the 
Limoges  period  was  his  letter  to  Terray  on  protection 
to  the  French  iron  industry.  In  the  course  of  this,  not 
foreseeing  the  use  of  mineral  coal  in  the  manufacture  of 
iron,  he  fell  into  a  curious  error.  His  theory  was  that 
only  nations  in  an  early  stage  of  development,  with 
great  forests  at  their  disposal  for  conversion  into  char- 
coal, can  make  iron.  Strange  as  this  idea  seems  to 
those  who  have  observed  the  growth  of  the  great  iron 
industry  in  the  leading  modern  nations,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  his  conclusion  was  better  than  some  of  his 
premises.  His  arguments  favoring  more  freedom  to  the 
admission  of  iron  may  be  read  to  good  purpose  even 
now,  and  one  sentence,  regarding  protective  duties 
between  nations,  may  well  be  carefully  pondered.  It 
is  as  follows:  "The  truth  is  that  in  aiming  to  injure 
others  we  injure  ourselves. " 

As  time  went  on,  Turgot's  work  at  Limoges  became 
more  and  more  known  and  admired.  Arthur  Young, 
whose  personal  observations  give  us  the  best  accounts  of 
French  agriculture  before  the  Eevolution,  visiting  the 
Limousin  shortly  after  Turgot  left  it,  dwelt  upon  the 
results  of  his  administration  as  the  best  ever  known  in 
France  up  to  that  time;  and  Young's  picture  of  the 
transformation  of  the  whole  region  under  Turgot's  con- 
trol produced  a  marked  effect  on  public  opinion,  not 
only  in  France,  but  throughout  Great  Britain  and  in 
Continental  Europe. 

During  the  last  years  of  Louis  XV,  recognition  had 
come  to  Turgot  as  never  before.     To  men  of  public  spirit, 

was  developed,  see  Leviticus,  xxv:  36,  37;  Deuteronomy,  xxiii;  Psalms, 
xv:  5;  Ezekiel,  xviii:  7,  17;  St.  Luke,  vi :  35.  For  a  detailed  account  of 
the  long  struggle  against  this  form  of  unreason,  and  citations  from  a  long 
line  of  authorities,  see  A  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology 
in  Christendom,  by  the  present  writer,  vol.  ii,  chap,  xix,  on  "The  Origin  and 
Progress  of  Hostility  to  Loans  at  Interest." 


202  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

and  especially  to  the  philosophers  who  had  long  dreamed 
of  a  better  government  and  a  more  prosperous  people, 
he  had  become  an  idol.  Even  many  who  had  mobbed 
him  for  his  interference  with  agricultural  protection  in 
the  provinces  now  became  his  strong  supporters. 
Though  he  was  intensely  hated  by  a  vast  body  of  reac- 
tionaries, self-seekers,  and  graspers  of  place  and  pelf, 
the  great  majority  of  thinking  Frenchmen  loved  him 
all  the  more  for  the  enemies  he  had  made. 

Turgot  had  fought  and  wrought  thirteen  years  at  the 
head  of  the  Limoges  government  when,  on  a  beautiful 
May  day  in  1774,  the  long  reign  of  Louis  XV  was  ended. 
Ancestors  of  the  dead  king — like  Charles  IX  and  Louis 
XIV — had  dealt  more  evident  and  direct  blows  at  the 
well-being  of  France,  but  never  since  the  foundation  of 
the  monarchy  had  any  sovereign  so  debauched  the  whole 
national  life ;  and  not  only  France,  but  the  world  at  large, 
began  to  take  account  of  the  legacies  he  had  left. 

First  of  these  were  his  character  and  example,  the 
worst  since  the  most  degraded  of  the  Caesars;  next  was 
his  court,  unmoral  and  immoral,  from  which  corruption 
had  long  welled  forth  over  and  through  the  nation.  In 
civil  matters,  there  had  prevailed  the  rule  of  the  worst ; 
in  military  matters,  defeat  and  dishonor;  in  finance, 
constantly  recurring  deficits  and  an  ever-nearing  pros- 
pect of  bankruptcy;  among  the  higher  clergy,  luxury 
and  intolerance;  among  the  nobility,  the  sway  of  cynics 
and  intriguers;  among  the  middle  classes,  unreasoning 
selfishness;  among  the  lower  classes,  pauperism,  igno- 
rance, frequent  famines,  a  deep  sense  of  injustice,  and 
a  rapidly  increasing  hatred  for  those  who  had  so  long 
oppressed  them.  Imbedded  in  this  enormous  legacy  of 
corruption,  misrule,  misery,  and  hate,  were  two  sayings 
with  which  the  late  king  and  his  most  intimate  adviser 
had  been  wont  to  repel  pleas  for  reform — "This  will 


TURGOT  203 

last  as  long  as  I  shall,"  and  "After  me  the  deluge."1 

The  deluge  had  come:  a  flood  of  resentments  for  old 
wrongs,  of  hatred  for  wrong-doers,  of  new  thought  bod- 
ing evil  to  all  that  was  established,  of  sentimentalism 
likely  to  become  cruelty.2 

To  withstand  this  deluge  had  come  Louis  XVI,  twenty 
years  of  age,  kindly  at  heart,  hating  the  old  order  of 
things,  longing  for  something  better,  but  weak,  awkward, 
mistrusting  himself  and  all  about  him ;  and,  at  his  side — 
destined  to  be  more  fatal  to  him  and  to  France  than  all 
else — his  beautiful  queen,  Marie  Antoinette,  sometimes 
kindly,  sometimes  selfish,  but  always  heedless,  frivolous, 
lavish,  never  strong  and  persistent,  save  against  those 
who  sought  to  shield  her  husband  and  herself  from  the 
approaching  catastrophe. 

First  of  all  there  must  be  a  prime  minister.  Re- 
flecting upon  this  fact,  and  calling  in  the  advice  of  those 
whom  he  thought  his  friends,  Louis  named  Maurepas — a 
decayed  fop,  seventy-three  years  of  age,  whose  life  had 
been  mainly  devoted  to  cultivating  useful  acquaintances 
and  scattering  witticisms  among  courtiers,  but  who,  on 
account  of  quarrels  with  some  of  the  women  about  Louis 
XV,  had  several  years  before  been  banished  to  his 
country  seat.  Maurepas  promptly  reappeared,  and  to 
him  was  entrusted  the  duty  of  selecting  a  new  ministry. 

He  would  doubtless  have  preferred  to  call  men  of  his 
own  sort ;  but,  being  shrewd  enough  to  see  that  this  was 
hardly  possible,  he  began  gradually  replacing  the  old 

i  The  latter  utterance  is  attributed  by  Sainte-Beuve  to  Madame  de  Pompa- 
dour, but  there  is  ample  evidence  that  the  king  adopted  it. 

2  See  a  remarkable  citation  from  Burke  in  Alison's  History  of  Europe, 
vol.  i,  chap,  i,  on  the  natural  transition  from  sentimentality  to  cruelty. 
A  curious  inversion  of  this  is  seen  in  our  own  country,  where  the  same 
men  who  will  risk  their  lives  to  lynch  a  murderer  just  after  his  crime 
is  committed  will,  as  jurymen,  a  few  months  later,  after  hearing  a  cun- 
ning speech,  acquit  him, — and  with  tears  of  joy. 


204  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ministers  with  better.  In  this  he  had  a  system: — the 
selection  of  men  who  could  make  a  reputation  likely  to 
give  him  popularity,  but  who  were  without  any  ambitions 
which  might  endanger  him. 

Foremost  among  these  men  was  Turgot.  The  story  of 
his  success  in  the  intendancy  of  Limoges  had  spread  far. 
Even  amidst  all  the  scoundrelism  of  the  time  there  was 
a  deep  respect  for  his  character,  and  an  admiration  for 
his  services.  Yet  Maurepas,  thinking  it  perhaps  not  best 
to  trust  him  very  far  at  first,  made  him  simply  Minister 
of  Naval  Affairs,  and  this  office  Turgot  held  for  just  five 
weeks  and  three  days.  Even  during  this  time  he  showed 
his  good  qualities,  by  casting  out  evils  and  suggesting 
reforms;  but  Maurepas,  feeling  it  necessary  to  yield  to 
the  universal  hatred  against  the  Abbe  Terray — every- 
where recognized  as  a  main  centre  of  evil  under  the  late 
king — removed  him  from  the  great  office  of  Comptroller- 
General — at  that  time  the  most  important  position  under 
the  monarchy — and  in  his  place  set  Turgot. 

This  nomination  gave  universal  satisfaction,  and  most 
of  all  to  the  new  king.  He  received  the  new  Comptroller 
with  open  arms ;  and  during  their  first  interview  Turgot 
made  his  famous  proposal:  "No  bankruptcy,  no  increase 
of  taxation,  no  new  debts;  economy  and  retrenchment." 
At  this  the  king  was  overjoyed,  gave  his  heart  to  Turgot, 
and  pledged  his  honor  to  support  him. 

That  this  confidence  was  well  placed  was  shown  by 
Turgot 's  first  budget;  it  was  made  with  such  genius  that 
it  ended  the  deficit,  extinguished  a  great  mass  of  debt, 
and  set  the  nation  on  the  road  to  prosperity. 

This  practical  financial  policy  was  but  part  of  a  plan 
far  deeper  and  wider.  Turgot  clearly  saw  that  the  old 
system  was  outworn,  that  its  natural  result  must  be  a 
catastrophe,  that  in  place  of  it  must  be  developed  a 
system  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  new  time,  that  whatever 
was  to  be  done  must  be  done  promptly  and  thoroughly, 


TURGOT  205 

and  that  the  only  question  was,  whether  this  new  sys- 
tem should  come  by  evolution  or  by  revolution. 

Like  heavy  drops  of  rain  before  a  shower  came  various 
suppressions  of  old  abuses,  including  the  monstrous  droit 
d'aubaine,  dismissals  of  incapables,  abolitions  of  sine- 
cures, arrests  of  peculators,  freedom  of  internal  trade  in 
grain,  and  freedom  of  the  press  in  matters  pertaining 
to  financial  and  general  administration.  Everything  be- 
gan to  tend  away  from  the  old  rule  of  secrecy,  in  which 
all  noxious  growths  flourished,  and  toward  throwing 
public  business  open  to  the  light  of  public  opinion. 

All  these  things  were  contrary  to  the  genius  of  Maure- 
pas,  and  he  gave  as  little  help  as  possible;  but  during 
the  following  year  he  strengthened  Turgot  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  true  statesman  as  Minister  of  the  King's 
Household.  This  statesman  was  Malesherbes,  a  man 
holding  high  judicial  position — neither  ambitious  nor 
especially  hopeful,  but  of  great  capacity  and  of  noble 
character.  His  new  office  was  of  vast  importance,  for  its 
occupant  had  large  control  of  the  court,  of  ecclesiastical 
affairs,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  of  the  city  of  Paris,  and 
of  various  districts  and  institutions  throughout  the 
kingdom.  Observing  Turgot 's  preliminary  reforms  and 
the  appointment  of  Malesherbes,  good  men  and  true 
throughout  the  realm  took  heart.  The  king,  Turgot,  and 
Malesherbes  stood  together — apparently  a  great  force. 
Maurepas,  encouraged  by  this  success,  gradually  added 
other  ministers ;  some,  like  Vergennes,  strengthening  the 
effort  toward  a  better  era;  others,  like  Saint-Germain, 
holding  back  or  going  astray.1 

Meanwhile  came  two  things  of  ill  omen.  First  was 
the  recall  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  which  had  been 
suspended  in  1771,  and  which  had  been  superseded,  as 
we  have  seen,  by  a  new  royal  court.  The  parasites  of  the 
banished  Parliament  besought  Louis  to  restore  it;  the 

i  See  Foncin,  Le  Miuistere  de  Turgot,  livre  ii,  chap.  x. 


206  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

queen  strongly  seconded  these  efforts;  Maurepas,  with 
the  great  mass  of  time-servers,  took  the  same  side;  and 
the  mob  hurrahed  for  it.  Opposing  the  recall  of  this  old, 
selfish,  tyrannical  body  were  Turgot,  Malesherbes,  Ver- 
gennes — Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs — and  two  powers 
which  it  surprises  us  to  find  in  such  company — first,  the 
king's  next  brother,  the  Comte  de  Provence,  and 
secondly,  the  clergy.  This  position  of  the  Comte  de 
Provence  was  doubtless  due  to  his  clear  conviction  that 
the  Parliament  injured  the  royal  power;  the  position  of 
the  clergy  was  due  to  the  only  good  thing  in  the  recent 
record  of  the  Parliament,  namely,  its  opposition  to  the 
French  prelates,  and  especially  to  the  Jesuits,  in  their 
attempts  to  revive  religious  persecution.1 

The  second  thing  of  ill  omen  was  the  coronation  oath. 
The  king  must  be  crowned ;  and,  costly  as  this  solemnity 
was,  and  empty  though  the  treasury  was,  it  seemed  best 
to  give  the  monarch  the  prestige  of  the  old  ceremony — 
the  stately  journey  to  Rheims,  the  largess  of  all  sorts, 
the  coronation  by  the  archbishops  and  bishops  of  France 
in  the  most  splendid  of  French  cathedrals,  the  anointing 
with  oil  from  the  sacred  ampulla  brought  from  heaven 
by  a  dove  more  than  a  thousand  years  before,  and  first 
used  by  St.  Remy  in  crowning  the  founder  of  the  French 
monarchy.  Turgot  had  advised  a  coronation  like  that 
of  Henry  IV,  and  that  of  Napoleon  afterward,  before  the 
high  altar  of  Notre  Dame,  at  Paris.  This  would  have 
saved  millions  to  the  treasury,  would  have  brought  to 
France  multitudes  of  visitors  whose  expenditures  would 
have  enured  to  the  benefit  of  the  country ;  and  all  this,  in 
the  fearful  condition  of  French  finances,  was  much. 

But  in  Turgot 's  mind  this  financial  consideration  was 
of  comparatively  small  account.  For,  in  the  coronation 
oath,  the  French  kings  had  been  made  to  swear  to  ex- 
terminate all  heretics,  and  this  oath  Turgot — in  the  inter- 

i  The  recall  took  place  November  12,  1774. 


TURGOT  207 

est  of  justice,  peace,  and  prosperity — sought  to  modify. 
But  the  clergy  were  too  strong  for  hhn.  They  in- 
sisted that  the  king  must,  above  all  things,  take  the  old 
oath,  and  Louis  yielded  to  them;  yet  amid  all  the  pomp 
of  the  coronation  it  was  observed  that,  when  his  majesty 
arrived  at  the  part  of  the  oath  which  referred  to  here- 
tics, his  words  were  incoherent  and  nearly  inaudible. 

Soon  came  a  new  trial  of  strength  between  Turgot,  rep- 
resenting what  was  best  in  the  new  epoch,  and  the  re- 
called Paris  Parliament,  adhering  to  what  was  worst  in 
the  old.  We  have  already  seen  what  the  old  system  of 
internal  protection  of  agriculture  had  done  for  France. 
Its  main  result  had  been  frequent  famines,  but  even  more 
evil  had  been  its  effects  on  the  king,  court,  and  high 
financiers.  For  there  had  been  developed  a  practice  of 
deriving  profit  from  famine  and  starvation ;  and  a  lead- 
ing feature  in  this  was  the  sale  of  privileges  to  escape 
the  protective  duties.  Out  of  these  had  grown  an  enor- 
mous system  of  monopoly  and  plunder, — what,  in  mod- 
ern days,  would  be  called  a  "grain  ring,"  including  not 
only  petty  intriguers  throughout  the  nation,  but  very 
many  of  the  highest  personages.  Even  King  Louis  XV 
had  been  besmirched  by  it.  This  monopoly  had  power  to 
keep  grain  cheap  in  sundry  parts  of  the  nation,  and 
there  to  buy  it ;  power  to  keep  grain  dear  in  other  parts 
of  the  nation,  and  there  to  sell  it.  There  was  an  unlim- 
ited field  for  intrigue  and  greed;  and  for  the  tillage  of 
this  field  was  developed  a  strong  and  shrewd  monopoly. 
Efforts  were  made  to  expose  this ;  but  to  criticise  a  min- 
ister was  considered  akin  to  treason.  Significant  was 
the  case  of  Prevost  de  Beaumont.  He  had  discovered 
sundry  misdoings  of  the  grain  monopolists  and  endeav- 
ored to  expose  them;  no  doubt  with  a  bitterness  which 
led  to  exaggeration;  as  a  result  he  was  thrown  into 
prison,  where  he  remained  over  twenty  years,  until  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution  and  the  destruction  of  the 


208  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Bastile  set  him  free.1  Against  this  whole  system  of 
internal  protection  of  agriculture,  and  against  all  who 
profited  by  it,  Turgot  stood  firmly.  As  far  back  as  1763 
and  1764  royal  decrees  had  been  put  in  force  abolishing 
it;  but,  with  his  invincible  tendency  toward  cheatery, 
the  Abbe  Terray,  Turgot 's  immediate  predecessor  in  the 
comptrollership,  had  suspended  these  decrees,  and  the 
old  system  with  all  its  evils  had  again  settled  down  upon 
France.  Now  came  a  new  struggle.  Turgot  induced  the 
king  to  revive  the  old  decrees  giving  internal  free  trade 
in  grain,  and,  although  protection  of  agriculture  from 
foreign  grain  remained,  the  whole  system  of  internal 
protection  was  abolished.  This  aroused  bitter  opposi- 
tion; first,  of  course,  from  the  grain  ring  and  its  satel- 
lites. Unfortunately,  bad  harvests  followed  the  new  de- 
cree; during  the  winter  of  1774^-75  came  scarcity  and 
even  famine,  and,  as  a  result,  bread  riots  and  insurrec- 
tions in  various  parts  of  France,  notably  beginning  at 
Dijon  near  the  eastern  frontier,  but  steadily  drawing  near 
the  centre  of  government,  and  finally,  in  April  and  May, 
1775,  appearing  in  Versailles  and  in  Paris.  The  result 
was  much  pillage  of  bakers'  shops  in  the  towns,  burning 
of  barns  in  the  country,  and  sinking  of  cargoes  of  grain 
in  the  rivers,  with  here  and  there  wholesale  plunder  and 
occasional  murder.  At  Versailles,  poor  Louis  tried  to 
win  the  mobs  by  harangues,  but  these  being  unheeded,  he 
thought  it  best,  in  the  absence  of  Turgot,  to  lower  arbi- 
trarily the  price  of  bread. 

Turgot  saw  in  this  a  beginning  of  new  evils.  Clearly, 
if  the  king  lowered  the  price  of  the  loaf  at  Versailles, 
every  other  province,  every  other  district,  every  other 
city,  every  other  hamlet,  had  a  right  to  demand  a  similar 

i  For  the  alleged  Pacte  de  Famine,  and  the  history  of  Prevost  de  Beau- 
mont, the  most  complete  account  I  have  found  is  in  Afannassiev,  Le 
Commerce  des  C6re~ales  en  France  au  ISi&me  Steele,  chaps,  xiv,  xv.  For 
Louis  XVs  interest  in  the  grain  monopoly,  and  for  Provost,  see  also  Henri 
Martin,  Histoire  de  France,  tome  xvi,  pp.  292-29G. 


TURGOT  209 

favor,  and  this  meant  a  policy  ending  in  bankruptcy  and 
more  helpless  famine.  Turgot 's  policy  was  really  more 
merciful.  As  preliminary  to  all  else,  he  insisted  on  hav- 
ing full  powers  from  the  king,  suppressed  the  insurrec- 
tion, dispersed  the  mobs,  and  two  of  the  leaders  in 
plundering  and  murdering  he  hanged  on  a  gibbet  forty 
feet  high.  It  was  a  "healthful  act.  Weak,  sentimental 
people,  whose  measures  in  such  crises  generally  turn  out 
the  most  cruel  which  can  be  devised,  lamented  this  sever- 
ity; but  the  execution  of  these  two  malefactors  doubtless 
prevented  the  deaths  of  scores,  and  perhaps  hundreds, 
of  innocent  persons,  which  would  have  been  unavoidable 
had  the  insurrection  been  allowed  to  rage  and  spread. 
What  sentimental  lenity  to  crime  can  do  in  enormously 
increasing  murder  we  know  but  too  well  in  the  United 
States;  what  manly,  prompt,  and  decisive  dealing  with 
crime  can  do  in  reducing  the  number  of  murders  to  almost 
a  negligible  point  we  see,  to-day,  in  the  administration  of 
criminal  justice  in  Great  Britain. 

While  thus  suppressing  insurrection,  Turgot  struck 
boldly  at  the  centre  of  the  whole  evil.  The  Parliament 
of  Paris,  in  its  general  hatred  of  reforms,  in  its  entan- 
glements with  monopolists,  and  in  its  dislike  for  Turgot, 
had  done  all  in  its  power  to  thwart  his  policy  by  every 
sort  of  chicanery  and  pettifoggery.  Thus  they  delayed 
the  registration  of  the  decree  for  reestablishing  freedom 
to  the  grain  trade  within  the  boundaries  of  France  for 
three  months;  but  now,  near  the  end  of  the  year  1774, 
Turgot  availed  himself  of  all  the  resources  of  French 
royal  power,  and  forced  them  to  yield. 

Unfortunately,  he  could  not  get  at  his  worst  enemies. 
The  bread  riots  had  been  organized  to  discourage  free 
trade  in  grain.  Behind  the  mob  were  the  monopolists; 
the  whole  movement  had  a  regularity  which  proved  that 
its  leaders  were  accustomed  to  command;  and  in  the 
pockets  of  insurgents,  howling  for  relief  from  starvation, 


210        SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

were  found  goodly  sums  of  money.  Various  clues  led 
back  to  the  Prince  de  Conti,  of  royal  blood,  and  to  other 
magnates  of  position  and  influence ;  but  Turgot,  not  wish- 
ing to  delay  other  projects  for  important  reforms,  or  to 
increase  popular  feeling,  was  obliged  to  abstain  from  any 
attempt  at  punishing  them. 


in 

AT  the  beginning  of  the  year,  1775,  Turgot  turned  to 
a  new  series  of  great  questions,  and,  most  impor- 
tant of  all,  to  a  project  for  reforming  the  taille, — the 
great  land  tax, — one  of  the  abuses  which  weighed  most 
heavily  upon  the  lower  orders  of  the  people.  It  was  the 
principal  tax  in  the  kingdom.  The  old  theory  was  that 
the  nobility  upheld  the  monarchy  with  their  swords,  that 
the  clergy  upheld  it  with  their  prayers,  and  that  the 
third  estate  upheld  it  with  their  money.  This  theory 
had  borne  a  vast  fruitage  of  injustice.  The  nobility 
escaped  with  such  comparatively  small  taxes  as  the  "cap- 
itations" and  the  "twentieths";  the  clergy  evaded  the 
heavier  burdens  by  so-called  "gifts,"  which  they  them- 
selves voted  from  time  to  time;  the  monied  classes  es- 
caped the  greater  taxes  by  purchasing  a  sort  of  half-caste 
nobility  which  freed  them  entirely  from  the  taille  and 
largely  from  other  burdens.  Very  many  of  the  less 
wealthy,  who  could  not  attain  to  enrollment  among  the 
nobles,  were  able  to  buy  privileges  which  exempted  them 
from  much  taxation.  Sundry  privileged  towns,  too,  in 
one  way  or  another,  had  secured  immunities.  As  a  re- 
sult of  all  these  exemptions,  the  burdens  of  the  state  fell 
with  all  the  more  crushing  force  upon  the  class  of  small 
peasant  proprietors,  farmers,  and  laborers,  numbering 
about  one-fourth  of  the  entire  population.  They  were 
the  poorest  inhabitants  of  France,  but  on  them  fell  the 
main  burden  of  the  taille,  and  to  this  were  added  multi- 
tudes of  feudal  and  church  dues, — to  such  an  extent  that 
throughout  large  parts  of  the  country  men  of  this  poorest 

class  were  taxed  more  than  four-fifths  of  their  earnings. 

211 


212  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Here,  too,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  taxes  on  articles 
of  ordinary  consumption  fell  upon  them  as  heavily  as 
upon  the  richest  in  the  land,  and  in  some  respects  even 
more  heavily.  The  government  duties  on  salt,  which 
made  the  price  of  that  commodity  eight  times  as  high  as 
at  the  present  day,  were  levied  in  a  way  especially  cruel, 
while  monopolies  and  trade  regulations  raised  the  price 
of  every  article  of  use. 

The  most  competent  authorities  tell  us  that  the  deaths 
of  Frenchmen  from  famine  in  1739-40  had  been  more 
numerous  than  those  caused  by  all  the  wars  of  Louis 
XIV,  that  eight  thousand  persons  died  of  misery  in  one 
month,  in  one  quarter  of  Paris,  that  peasants  died  of  want 
within  the  precincts  of  Versailles,  that  some  villages  were 
completely  deserted,  and  that  multitudes  fled  across  the 
frontier.  The  Bishop  of  Chartres,  being  asked  by  the 
king  how  his  flock  fared,  answered,  "Sire,  they  eat  grass 
like  sheep  and  starve  like  flies."  Turgot  found  that 
more  than  half  of  France  was  cultivated  by  peasant 
farmers  who  were  absolute  paupers,  and  all  this  within 
the  most  fertile,  the  most  healthful,  and  the  best  situated 
state  in  Europe.  Arthur  Young  tells  us  that  not  less 
than  forty  million  acres  of  French  soil  were  wholly  or 
nearly  waste.  Many  abuses,  royal,  feudal,  clerical,  con- 
tributed to  this  state  of  things,  but  among  the  causes 
especially  prominent  was  the  taille,  and  therefore  it  was 
that  Turgot,  who  had  endeavored  to  ease  this  fearful 
burden  at  Limoges,  now  sought  to  adjust  it  fairly 
throughout  France. 

The  main  difficulty  dated  from  Louis  XIV.  A  modern 
economist  states  it  as  follows:  "Costly  campaigns 
abroad,  ruinous  extravagance  at  home,  left  the  kingdom 
at  his  death  in  1715  with  a  debt  of  3,460  millions  of 
francs.  .  .  .  His  murderous  wars,  reducing  the 
birth-rate,  increased  the  mortality,  and  the  expulsion  of 
the  Protestants  had  reduced  the  population  by  four  mil- 


TURGOT  213 

lions,  or  twenty  per  cent,  since  1660.  Agricultural  prod- 
ucts had  fallen  off  by  one-third  since  he  ascended  the 
throne.  Burdens  increased,  while  they  were  diminished 
who  bore  them.  A  competent  judge  computed  that 
more  than  half  of  the  taxes  were  eaten  up  by  the  cost  of 
collection."  1 

This  condition  of  things  had  been  made  even  worse 
by  the  Orleans  regency  and  Louis  XV.  No  less  cruel 
than  the  taxes  themselves  was  the  manner  of  collecting 
them.  The  king  in  council  having  fixed  the  amount  to  be 
levied  every  year,  an  order  was  issued  naming  some  indi- 
vidual in  each  community  as  collector,  and  making  him 
personally  responsible  for  the  whole  amount  of  the  direct 
taxes  in  his  district.  In  case  this  official  failed  under 
his  burden,  the  other  leading  taxpayers  in  his  district 
were  made  responsible, — all  for  each  and  each  for  all. 
This  system  was  known  as  the  contrainte  solidaire,  and 
it  was  substantially  the  same  which  had  done  so  much, 
nearly  fifteen  hundred  years  before,  to  dissolve  the  Ro- 
man Empire.2 

Even  more  cruel  were  the  "indirect"  taxes  levied  upon 
all  the  main  articles  consumed  by  the  peasantry  and 
collected  by  the  agents  of  the  Farmers  General.  Re- 
membrances of  indignities  and  extortions  by  these  agents 
were  among  the  leading  incentives  to  the  fearful  pillage, 
destruction,  and  murder  with  which  the  Revolution  be- 
gan fifteen  years  later.3 

i  See  the  admirable  little  book  of  Higgs,  The  Physiocrats.  For  the  above 
statement  he  cites  such  eminent  authorities  as  Levasseur  and  Lavergne. 
For  the  best  statement  known  to  me  on  this  whole  subject,  see  Taine, 
Ancien  Regime;  and  for  the  best  summary  known  to  me  in  English,  see 
Lecky,  History  of  England,  vol.  v,  citing  Rocquain,  Doniol,  and  others. 

2  For  the  disintegration  of  the  Roman  Empire  by  burdens  upon  leading 
tax  payers,  see  Guizot,  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  en  France;  and  for  a- 
comparison  of  the  tax  collectors  with  the  Curiales  just  before  the  end  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  see  E.  Levasseur,  Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvrieres,  as 
above,  tome  ii,  p.  710. 

3  One  of  the  most  satisfactory  accounts,  within  reasonable  compass,  of 


214  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

To  meet  these  evils,  Turgot  prepared  plans  for  an 
equitable  adjustment  of  the  tax  and  a  better  system  for 
its  collection,  and  this,  with  a  multitude  of  other  capital 
reforms,  he  elaborated  during  1775,  although  during  the 
first  four  months  of  the  year  he  was  confined  to  his  bed 
by  a  most  painful  attack  of  gout.  His  physical  condition 
did  not  daunt  him :  he  worked  on  vigorously  despite  his 
suffering,  and,  so  far  as  the  world  knew,  he  was  as 
valiant  in  grappling  with  the  enemies  who  had  beset  him 
as  he  had  been  in  the  vigor  of  his  early  manhood. 

Steadily  pressing  on  in  his  policy  of  breaking  a  way 
out  of  the  mass  of  old  abuses  and  developing  a  better 
order  of  things,  Turgot,  in  January  and  February  of 
1776,  took  up  his  most  important  work  for  France, — 
the  preparation  of  "the  six  great  edicts."  Their  main 
purpose  was  to  loose  the  coils  which  were  strangling 
French  activities  of  every  sort;  and,  of  these,  two  were 
by  far  the  most  important.  First,  was  the  edict  for  the 
suppression  of  the  royal  corvee.  The  character  of  the 
corvee  and  the  happy  result  of  its  suppression  France 
had  learned  during  his  administration  at  Limoges.  As 
we  have  seen,  the  purpose  of  this  burden  was  the  making 
of  the  royal  roads,  and  the  transportation  of  military 
stores.  Under  the  old  system  the  peasantry  were  liable 
to  be  called  from  their  farm  work  during  seed  time  or 
harvest  and  made  to  give  many  days  of  hard  and  ex- 
hausting work  to  road  construction  or  to  military  trans- 
portation,— the  main  result  being  that  the  roads  were 
among  the  worst  in  the  world  and  the  transportation  of 
military  stores  anything  but  satisfactory.     The  cruelty 

the  old  French  system  of  taxation,  which  I  have  found,  is  in  Esmein,  His- 
toire  du  Droit  Frangais,  Paris,  1901,  pp.  380  ff,  552  ff.  For  excellent  short 
and  clear  statements  regarding  the  taille,  the  contrainte  solidaire,  and  the 
"five  great  fermes," — the  latter  being  the  taxes  collected  by  the  Farmers 
General, — see  Rambaud,  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  Frangaisc,  Paris,  1897, 
chap.  ix.  See  also,  for  the  best  presentation  of  the  subject  in  its  relations, 
to  French  industry,  Levasseur,  as  above. 


TURGOT  215 

and  wastefulness  of  the  system  had  then  and  there  been 
remedied  by  Turgot,  and  for  it  he  had  substituted  a 
moderate  tax,  which  being  applied  to  the  roads,  under 
proper  engineers,  and  to  transportation,  under  well- 
guarded  contracts,  had  given  infinitely  better  results, 
and  had  relieved  the  peasantry  of  these  most  galling 
burdens. 

But  to  this  system,  which  succeeded  so  well  in  the 
Limousin,  and  which  Turgot  now  proposed,  by  one  of  the 
six  edicts,  to  extend  throughout  France,  there  soon  ap- 
peared an  ominous  opposition.  Nobles,  clergy,  and  the 
Parliament  of  Paris  united  to  oppose  it.  Their  main 
argument  was  that  Turgot  purposed  to  degrade  the  up- 
per classes;  that,  logically,  if  government  could  tax  the 
nobility  and  the  clergy  equally  with  the  peasantry  for 
the  improvement  of  the  highways  of  the  kingdom,  it 
could  tax  them  equally  for  any  other  purpose,  and  that 
this  would  obliterate  the  essential  distinction  between 
nobles  and  base-born. 

It  is  hard,  in  the  France  of  these  days,  to  understand 
the  chasm  of  prejudice  between  the  upper  and  lower 
classes  which  existed  in  those.  There  had  been  in 
French  history  before  Turgot 's  time  striking  exhibitions 
of  this  feeling.  Significant  of  much  was  the  protest  and 
complaint  solemnly  made  by  the  nobility  to  the  king  at 
the  States-General  of  1614.  They  complained  that  the 
Third  Estate,  consisting  of  representatives  of  the  vast 
body  of  the  French  people  not  noble,  had  in  one  of 
their  appeals  presumed  to  speak  of  themselves  as  the 
"younger  brothers"  of  the  nobility;  and  the  noble  dele- 
gates protested  against  this  as  "great  insolence."  Not 
less  striking  evidences  of  this  same  feeling  are  to  be  seen 
throughout  the  plays  of  Moliere:  in  all  of  them  the 
gentilhomme  is  everything,  the  roturier  nothing.1 

i  For  the  protest  and  complaint  of  the  nobles  at  the  States  General  of 
1614,  see  Duruy,  Histoire  de  France,  tome  ii,  pp.  236,  237. 


216  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

More  extended  and  hardly  less  bitter  was  the  opposi- 
tion to  the  other  great  edict, — for  the  suppression  of  the 
Jurandes  and  Maitrises — the  corporations  which  repre- 
sented the  various  trades  and  the  wardenships  which 
controlled  thern.     In  order  to  understand  this  particular 
complex  of  abuses  which  Turgot  now  endeavored  to  un- 
ravel, it  must  be  remembered  that  under  the  old  ideas  of 
governmental  interference  there  had  grown  up  in  France 
a  system  by  which  the  various  trades  and  industries  had 
become  close  corporations,  each  having  its  rights,  its  laws, 
its  restrictions,  its  exclusions,  its  definitions,  its  hierarchy 
of  officials.     No  person  could  exercise  such  trades  without 
going  through  a  long  series  of  formalities;  no  person 
could  rise  in  any  of  them  without  buying  the  right  to  rise. 
For  some  of  these  features  there  had  doubtless  once  been 
a  valid  reason ;  but  the  whole  system  had  finally  become 
one  of  the  most  absurd  things  in  all  that  chaos  of  mis- 
rule.   Between  1666  and  1683  Colbert  had  issued  one 
hundred  and  forty-nine  different  decrees  regarding  vari- 
ous trades;  from  1550  to  1776,  over  two  hundred  and 
twenty-five  years,  there  was  dragging  through  the  courts 
and  the  cabinets  of  the  ministry  the  great  struggle  be- 
tween the  tailors  and  the  clothes-menders,  the  main  ques- 
tion being  as  to  what  constitutes  a  new  and  what  an  old 
coat, — the  tailors  being  allowed  to  work  only  upon  new 
clothing  and  the  menders  upon  old.    From  1578  to  1767, 
close  upon  two  hundred  years,  the  shoemakers  and  cob- 
blers had  been  in  perpetual  lawsuits  regarding  the  defini- 
tion of  an  old  boot, — the  regulation  being  in  force  that 
shoemakers  were  allowed  to  deal  only  with  new  boots 
and  cobblers  with  old.     Similar  disputes   occurred  be- 
tween the  roasters  and  the  cooks  as  to  which  should  have 
the  exclusive  right  to  cook  geese,   and  which  to  cook 
smaller  fowls ;  which  the  right  to  cook  poultry,  and  which 
the  right  to  cook  game;  which  the  right  to  sell  simply 
cooked  meats,  and  which  to  sell  meats  prepared  with. 


TURGOT  217 

sauces.  Beside  these  were  endless  squabbles  between 
sellers  of  dry  goods,  clothiers,  and  hatters:  wonderful 
were  the  arguments  as  to  the  number  of  gloves  or  hats 
which  certain  merchants  might  expose  for  sale  at  one 
time.  In  cloth  making  and  selling  there  were  minute 
restrictions,  carefully  enacted,  as  to  the  width,  length, 
and  color  of  pieces  which  might  be  sold.  Workmen  of 
one  sort  were  not  allowed  to  do  work  generally  done  by 
another  sort  in  the  same  trade,  and  upon  all  the  trades 
were  levied  taxes  and  exactions  which  they  recovered, 
as  best  they  might,  from  each  other  and  from  the  public 
at  large.  Underlying  and  permeating  all  this  tangled 
mass  of  evil  was  the  idea  of  paternal  government, — the 
idea  that  the  duty  of  a  good  government  is  to  do  the 
thinking  for  its  subjects  in  a  vast  number  of  matters  and 
transactions  on  which  the  individuals  concerned  would 
far  better  think  for  themselves.  As  a  legitimate  conse- 
quence of  this  theory,  one  regulation  required  that  tail- 
ors, grocers,  sellers  of  mustard,  sellers  of  candles,  and  a 
multitude  of  others  engaged  in  various  branches  of  busi- 
ness, carefully  specified,  should  belong  to  the  established 
church.1 

This  whole  system — as  crippling  French  industry  and 
undermining  French  character — Turgot  sought  to  rem- 
edy. There  was  nothing  of  the  Jack  Cade  spirit  in  his 
policy.  He  allowed  just  compensation  in  every  case,  but, 
having  done  this,  he  insisted  that  the  trade  corporations 
should  be  extinguished  and  all  wardenships  abolished, 
except  in  four  industries :  in  printing,  because  the  nation 
was  not  yet  ready  for  the  measures  which  he  would  doubt- 
less have  elaborated  later;  in  pharmacy  and  jewelry,  be- 
cause these  trades  need  governmental  control  under  all 
governments, — individuals  being  unable  to  exercise  it; 

1  For  special  cases  in  this  growth  of  human  folly,  see  Duruy,  Eistoire  de 
France,  tome  ii.  For  the  development  of  the  system,  see  Levasseur,  tome 
ii,  passim. 


218  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

and  in  the  barbers'  and  wigmakers'  trade,  because,  dur- 
ing financial  emergencies  under  previous  reigns,  so  many 
wardenships,  inspectorskijDS,  comptrollerships,  and  minor 
positions  of  various  sorts  in  this  branch  of  business  had 
been  created  and  sold  to  produce  revenue  that  Turgot 
felt  unable  to  buy  them  in.  Noteworthy  is  it  that  when 
the  rights  of  these  barber  functionaries  were  redeemed 
during  the  Revolution,  the  indemnity  paid  was  over 
twenty  millions  of  francs. 

Of  course,  ingenious  and  elaborate  arguments  were 
made  by  strong  men  in  favor  of  that  old  system,  as  they 
have  been  always  made  in  favor  of  every  other  old 
system.  In  our  days  these  arguments  have  been  echoed 
by  Alison.  As  a  representative  of  English  High  Tory- 
ism he  naturally  declares  against  Turgot 's  reforms;  and 
especially  striking  is  the  Tory  historian's  defense  of  the 
old  French  trade  corporations  in  comparison  with  the 
trade  unions  of  Great  Britain  in  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  He  exhibits  the  long  series  of 
wrongs  and  plundering,  and  even  of  unpunished  murder, 
by  these  modern  English  organizations  of  labor,  and 
attempts  to  present  them  as  the  only  alternative  to  the 
French  organizations  under  the  Bourbons.  But  this 
argument,  striking  as  it  was  when  Alison  presented  it 
over  fifty  years  ago,  has  now  lost  its  force.1 

The  main  line  of  contemporary  argument  against  Tur- 
got was  that  his  reforms  "impugned  the  wisdom  of  our 
ancestors,"  that  they  swept  away  all  distinctions  between 
expert  and  worthless  artisans,  and  that  they  were  sure 
to  destroy  the  supremacy  of  French  industry. 

There  were  long  sessions  of  the  Paris  Parliament  by 
day  and  night,  with  no  end  of  sham  patriotic  speeches 
and  impassioned  debates.  Prominent  in  these  was 
D'Espremcnil,  big,  handsome,  oratorical,  adored  by  his 
party, — ready  at  any  moment  to  make  eloquent  harangues 

i  See  Alison,  History  of  Europe,  vol.  i,  chap.  iii. 


TURGOT  219 

supporting  abuses  and  denouncing  reforms.  Little  did 
it  occur  to  him  that  his  own  life  and  the  lives  of  his 
friends  were  at  stake  and  that  Turgot  was  doing  his  best 
to  save  them;  possibly  this  thought  dawned  upon  him 
when,  a  few  years  later,  he  took  his  way  to  the  guillotine. 

Eegarding  this  edict,  also,  Turgot  persevered.  The 
Paris  Parliament,  making  a  pretense  of  fairness,  did,  in- 
deed, register  of  its  own  accord  one  of  the  minor  edicts, 
while  rejecting  the  others.  All  in  vain:  the  king,  though 
reluctant  and  halting,  summoned  the  Parliament  to  a 
"Bed  of  Justice"  and  compelled  it  to  register  this  and 
all  the  other  edicts. 

Closely  connected  with  these  reforms  were  Turgot 's 
dealings  with  another  vast  evil.  The  system  of  farming 
the  "indirect  taxes"  of  the  nation  had  long  been  fruitful 
of  corruption  among  the  higher  classes  and  of  misery 
among  the  lower.  In  general  terms,  the  system  was  one 
in  which,  the  amount  of  these  taxes  having  been  deter- 
mined, the  collection  of  them  was  let  out  to  a  great  com- 
bination of  contractors,  and  on  terms  enormously  profit- 
able to  them.  To  secure  this  monopoly,  and  to  prevent 
opposition  to  it,  this  syndicate  kept  the  hands  of  the  gov- 
ernment tied  by  advancing  to  it  large  sums  in  times  of 
its  greatest  need;  captured  influential  personages  at 
court,  from  ministers  and  mistresses  of  the  king  down 
to  the  most  contemptible  of  their  parasites,  by  petty 
offices,  pensions,  and  gifts ;  secured  the  services  or  silence 
of  rogues  in  all  parts  of  the  kingdom  by  threats  or 
bribery.  It  assumed  the  character  of  what  in  America 
of  these  days  would  be  called  a  "combine,"  and  at  the 
head  of  it  were  the  Farmers  General, — wealthy,  power- 
ful, and,  as  a  rule,  merciless.  Their  power  pervaded  the 
entire  nation, — from  the  king's  apartments  at  Versailles 
to  the  cottages  of  the  lowliest  village.  Whenever  it  was 
thought  best  to  buy  a  man,  he  was  bought;  whenever  it 
was  thought  best  to  discredit  him,  he  was  discredited; 


220  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

■whenever  it  was   thought  best   to   crush  him,   he  was 
crushed.1 

To  these  men  and  their  methods,  Voltaire  had  made  a 
reference  which  ran  through  France,  and,  indeed,  through 
Europe.  A  party  of  Parisians  were  amusing  each  other 
"by  telling  robber  stories.  Presently  Voltaire,  who  had 
been  listening  quietly,  said,  "I  can  tell  a  robber  story 
better  than  any  of  yours. ' '  The  whole  room  immediately 
became  silent  and  listened  to  the  greatest  personage  in 
the  French  literature  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Vol- 
taire, after  clearing  his  throat,  began  as  follows :  "Once 
on  a  time  there  was  a  Farmer  General."  Then  he  was 
silent.  Presently  all  began  to  cry  out:  "Why  do  you 
stop?  Go  on.  Tell  us  the  story."  "I  have  told  the 
story, ' '  said  Voltaire ; ' '  do  you  not  see  that  my  statement 
implies  the  greatest  robber  story  in  history?" 

The  French  came  to  understand  the  Farmers  General 
perfectly,  and  twenty  years  later  a  class  of  patriots  and 
reformers  differing  from  Turgot  in  their  methods  sent 
all  the  Farmers  General  on  whom  they  could  lay  hands  to 
the  guillotine. 

Against  that  phalanx  of  injustice  Turgot  stood  forth 
undaunted.  He  could  not,  indeed,  completely  rout  it,  but 
he  checked  its  worst  abuses,  cut  down  its  illegal  profits, 
and  greatly  diminished  its  power  to  corrupt  the  nation. 

In  his  own  person  he  set  a  noble  example.  For  a  long 
time  it  had  been  customary  for  the  Farmers  General  to 
present  to  the  Comptroller  an  enormous  gift  whenever  the 
government  contract  with  them  was  renewed.     This  had 

i  For  a  striking,  but  entirely  trustworthy,  statement  of  this  system 
of  farming  the  taxes,  see  Fonein,  Le  Ministdre  de  Turgot,  liv.  i,  chap.  vi. 
See  also  Esmein  and  Rambaud,  as  above.  Also  for  a  very  complete,  thor- 
ough, and  critical  study,  see  R.  P.  Shepherd,  in  his  "Turgot  and  the  Six 
Edicts,"  Political  Science  Quarterly  of  Columbia  University,  vol.  iv.  For 
a  list  of  pensions  paid  by  each  of  the  sixty  Farmers  General,  with  names 
of  recipients,  and  amounts  received,  see  Neymarck,  Turgot  et  scs  Doc- 
trines, tome  ii,  appendix. 


TUEGOT  221 

become  a  well-known  institution,  and  the  so-called  "gift" 
to  the  Comptroller  was  regarded  as  one  of  his  proper 
perquisites.  In  Tnrgot's  case  it  amounted  to  three  hun- 
dred thousand  livres,  equal  in  purchasing  power,  very 
nearly,  to  the  same  number  of  dollars  in  our  own  land 
and  time.  Turgot  utterly  refused  this  gift ;  he  had  deter- 
mined to  enter  into  his  great  struggle  unhampered. 

While  carrying  out  these  fundamental  measures  he 
effected  a  long  series  of  minor  reforms.  There  was  the 
abuse  of  the  octroi,  under  which  taxes  were  collected  on 
the  produce  of  the  peasants  at  the  gates  of  cities.  In 
this  there  had  come  various  growths  of  injustice,  notably 
one  in  levying  high  taxes  on  the  sorts  of  products  con- 
sumed by  the  poorer  inhabitants  of  towns,  and  in  levy- 
ing low  taxes  on  luxuries  consumed  by  the  higher  classes. 
At  this  he  struck  an  effective  blow.  In  sundry  cities  and 
districts,  especially  at  Eouen,  were  special  monopolies  in 
the  grain  trade,  and  in  the  business  of  bakers,  which  bore 
heavily  upon  the  poorer  classes.  These  he  planned  to 
destroy.  At  court  and  throughout  the  nation  were  myr- 
iads of  sinecures ;  and  these  he  extinguished  whenever 
a  chance  offered.  Throughout  the  country  the  system  of 
raising  money  by  lotteries  prevailed;  he  saw — what  so 
few  statesmen  among  the  Latin  governments  have  seen 
from  that  day  to  this — the  power  of  lotteries  to  under- 
mine the  financial  morality  of  a  people;  and  he  struck 
effectively  at  these  also.  But  here  it  should  be  especially 
mentioned  that  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  he  was  care- 
ful to  provide  compensation  to  all  who  had  just  claims 
for  loss  of  place  or  privilege.  In  this  he  showed  that 
same  wisdom  which  Great  Britain  has  shown  in  the  his- 
tory of  her  reforms.1 

Turgot  now  realized  that  measures  to  ameliorate 
feudalism  must  come.  But  he  saw  that  the  time  had  not 
yet  arrived  for  developing  them  beyond  what  was  abso- 

i  On  Turgot's  policy  regarding  lotteries,  see  Foncin. 


222  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

lutely  necessary  in  preventing  revolution.  His  main  ef- 
fort in  this  field  was  to  prepare  the  public  mind  for 
gradual  reforms,  and  therefore  it  was  that,  in  1775,  he 
suggested  to  Boncerf,  whom  he  knew  to  have  thoroughly 
studied  the  subject,  the  publication  of  a  pamphlet  on  the 
evils  of  feudalism.  As  a  respected  officer  in  one  of  the 
highest  grades  of  the  financial  administration,  and  as  a 
man  thoroughly  trained  in  the  law,  Boncerf  was  in  every 
way  fitted  to  discuss  the  subject.  Nothing  could  be  more 
fair,  just,  and  moderate  than  his  book.  Even  its 
title  was  studiously  mild.  Instead  of  announcing  it  as 
an  exhibition  of  the  evils  or  cruelties  or  wrongs  perpe- 
trated by  feudalism,  he  entitled  it  The  Inconveniences  of 
Feudal  Rights  (Les  Inconvenients  des  Droits  Feodaux). 
It  was  neither  drastic  nor  vindictive.  It  simply  de- 
fended, as  an  experiment,  the  abolition  of  feudal  rights 
on  the  domains  of  the  king,  not  merely  as  a  matter  of 
justice,  but  as  a  matter  of  policy.  Hardly  had  it  ap- 
peared, in  January  of  1776,  when  the  Parliament  struck 
at  it  venomously.  On  motion  of  D'Espremenil  the  book 
was  ordered  burned  by  the  hangman,  and  indictments 
were  brought  against  Boncerf  which  hung  over  his  head 
until  the  Kevolution  swept  them  away.  It  is  a  curious 
historical  detail  that  Boncerf,  after  the  Revolution  had 
begun  its  course,  was  placed  by  the  Constituent  Assembly 
in  a  position  which  aided  him  in  destroying  the  evils  he 
had  exhibited  in  his  book,  and  that  he  himself  sealed  up 
the  cabinets  which  contained  the  indictments  that  had 
been  brought  against  him.  Significant  also,  perhaps,  is 
the  further  detail  that,  later  in  his  career,  while  D'Es- 
premenil was  brought  to  the  guillotine,  Boncerf  escaped 
the  Revolutionary  jury  by  a  majority  of  one.1 

But  it  should  not  be  understood  that  all  of  Turgot's 
efforts  were  given  to  removing  old  abuses.     He  was  no 

i  A  copy  of  the  rare  first  edition  of  Boncerf's  book  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Library  of  Cornell  University. 


TURGOT  223 

mere  destroyer ;  he  was  essentially  a  builder ;  all  his  re- 
form measures  had  as  their  object  the  clearing  of  a  basis 
for  better  institutions.  Though  the  shortness  of  his  min- 
istry— only  twenty-one  months — prevented  his  putting 
all  into  definite  form,  there  were  several  which  have  since 
Tendered  great  services  to  his  country.  He  vastly  bet- 
tered the  postal  system  throughout  France,  not  only 
improving  the  roads  on  the  plan  which  had  done  so  much 
for  the  Limousin  during  his  intendancy,  but  developing 
on  these  a  service  of  fast  coaches  and  diligences  which 
greatly  reduced  the  time  between  the  most  important 
points  in  France,  and  which  became  the  envy  of  all  neigh- 
boring nations.  Under  his  direction  were  also  prepared 
projects  for  a  great  network  of  internal  water  communi- 
cations by  the  improvement  of  rivers,  and  the  construc- 
tion of  canals ;  and,  to  study  the  problems  connected  with 
these,  he  called  to  his  aid  the  men  most  eminent  in  ap- 
plied science.  He  sought  to  create  a  scientific  system  of 
weights  and  measures  to  take  the  place  of  the  chaos  of 
systems  which  had  come  down  from  the  Middle  Ages. 
To  aid  industry  he  organized  a  better  system  of  banking, 
not  only  in  cities,  but  in  rural  centres,  thus  initiating  the 
ideas  which  have  done  so  much  for  French  prosperity  in 
these  days.  As  to  higher  education,  he  virtually  created 
the  Academy  of  Medicine,  which  since  his  time  has  be- 
come the  most  famous  and  weighty  in  the  world;  and  in 
the  College  de  France  he  established  new  professorships 
of  law  and  literature. 

Best  of  all,  as  revealing  his  depth  and  breadth  of 
thought,  his  insight  into  the  character  of  the  French 
people,  his  intuition  as  to  their  capacities,  his  foresight 
of  their  dangers,  and  his  desire  to  create  an  environment 
in  which  a  better  future  might  be  developed,  was  the 
Memorial  on  Municipalities.  Among  the  many  evidences 
of  his  power  as  a  political  thinker  and  statesman,  this 
is  the  most  striking  as  showing  his  ability  to  bring  theory 


22-4  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

to  bear  on  practice.  He  saw  what  the  most  thoughtful 
men  in  France  have  only  just  begun  clearly  to  see, — that 
the  greatest  defect  in  that  gifted  nation  has  been  its 
want  of  practical  political  education  and  its  consequent 
centralization  of  political  power.  Therefore  it  was  that, 
amid  all  his  pressing  occupations  in  1775,  he,  with  his 
friend  Dupont  de  Nemours,  sketched  out  a  plan  for  the 
gradual  education  of  the  French  people,  not  only  in  public 
schools,  but  in  the  practical  management  of  public  af- 
fairs, by  a  system  beginning  in  local  self-government  and 
ending  in  a  constitutional  government  of  the  nation. 

Beginning  at  the  little  village  communities,  he  pro- 
posed to  establish  in  each  a  local  council  elected  by  peas- 
ants and  other  small  taxpayers,  to  discuss  and  decide 
upon  its  own  local  matters,  and  also  to  elect  delegates 
to  the  councils  of  the  arrondissements ,  or,  as  we  should 
call  them,  the  counties.  The  arrondissement  councils, 
thus  elected  by  the  village  communities,  were  to  discuss 
and  decide  arrondissement  matters,  and  to  elect  deputies 
to  the  assemblies  of  the  provinces.  The  assemblies  of 
the  provinces  were  to  discuss  and  decide  provincial  mat- 
ters and  to  elect  representatives  to  the  assembly  of  the 
nation. 

Closely  connected  with  this  plan  was  a  broad,  graded 
system  of  public  instruction  for  children  and  youth. 
Could  he  have  been  given  a  free  hand  in  accomplishing 
this  combination,  he  would  have  redeemed  his  promise 
that  ten  years  of  it  would  make  a  new  France.  In  all 
this  there  was  no  rashness;  he  expressly  declared  it  his 
wish  to  proceed  with  the  utmost  moderation,  and  that 
his  main  desire  was  to  lay  foundations.  Had  he  been 
allowed  freedom  to  make  a  practical  beginning  of  his 
work,  he  would  soon  have  produced  an  environment  in 
which  Bourbon  autocracy  and  Jacobin  mob  rule  would 
have  been  equally  impossible.1 

i  For  Turgot'e  plan  of  political  education,  see  (Euvres  de  Turgot,  tome 


TURGOT  225 

To  a  very  large  body  of  men  in  his  time  the  reforms 
of  Turgot,  and  especially  this  plan  for  the  political 
education  of  the  French  people,  seemed  madness;  but 
those  who  best  know  France  to-day,  and  who  look  back 
upon  her  history  without  prejudice,  will,  as  a  rule,  find 
in  this  two-fold  plan  a  proof  that  Turgot  saw  farther 
than  any  other  man  of  his  time  into  the  needs  of  his 
country.  However  we  may  dislike  his  temporary  re- 
striction of  the  suffrage,  there  would  seem  to  be  no  ques- 
tion that,  had  his  plan  been  carried  forward,  the  French 
nation  would,  within  a  generation,  have  attained  what  a 
century  of  alternating  revolutions  and  despotisms  is  only 
now  beginning  to  give. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  for  over  a  century 
and  a  half  before  Turgot  there  had  not  been  a  meeting 
of  any  body  of  men  representing  the  French  nation,  that 
there  was  not  among  the  French  people  any  idea  of  the 
most  ordinary  public  discussion  of  political  matters,  and 
that  the  holding  of  a  political  meeting  in  accordance 
with  the  simplest  rules  of  order  was  something  beyond 
French  comprehension.  This  should  be  remembered  by 
those  who  think  that  Turgot  should  have  given  universal 
suffrage  at  the  outset.  Two  things  more  should  not  be 
forgotten:  first,  that  the  number  of  peasant  proprietors 
was  large  and  increasing;  and,  secondly,  that  he  went 
farther  in  giving  them  power  than  any  other  man  of 
note  in  his  time — proposing  a  beginning  from  which  a 

ii,  pp.  502-550.  For  a  good  summary,  see  Stephens,  Life  of  Turgot,  pp. 
113,  114;  and  for  an  eloquent  statement  of  Turgot's  Memorial  and  its 
probable  effects,  see  Duruy,  Histoire  de  France,  tome  ii,  p.  567.  The  pres- 
ent writer  had  the  fortune  to  take  part  in  discourse  with  various  ministers 
who  served  Napoleon  III  during  different  epochs  of  the  Second  Empire, 
and  afterward,  and  to  observe  closely  their  doings;  and  never  did  he  find 
one  who,  in  his  department,  seemed  to  embody  so  thoroughly  the  spirit 
of  Turgot  as  did  Duruy,  who,  during  more  than  six  years  held  the  Min- 
istry of  Public  Instruction  against  the  constant  attack3  of  the  French 
clergy. 

is 


226  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

more  extended  suffrage  would  have  been  developed  nat- 
urally and  normally. 

This,  too,  should  be  said  for  his  system.  He  clearly 
saw  that  matters  involving  taxation  in  municipalities 
should  be  passed  upon  by  the  taxpayers  themselves,  and 
in  this  respect  he  was  beyond  the  point  at  which  our 
own  nation  has  arrived.  No  absurdity  in  modern  gov- 
ernment is  greater  than  that  seen  in  the  American  cities, 
which  permits  great  bodies  of  people,  very  many  of 
them  recently  from  foreign  climes,  ignorant  of  American 
duties,  devoid  of  American  experience,  and  unconscious 
of  paying  any  taxes  at  all,  to  confer  franchises  and  to- 
decide  on  the  expenditures  of  moneys  collected  from  tax- 
payers. 

On  political  questions,  the  rule  at  which  general  hu- 
man experience  has  arrived  is  universal  suffrage.  In 
municipal  matters,  which  are  corporation  matters,  the 
rule  should  be  that  questions  involving  the  granting  of 
franchises,  and  the  raising  and  expenditure  of  taxes, 
should  be  settled  by  taxpayers.  Blindness  to  this  fact 
has  made  our  municipalities  the  most  corrupt  in  the  civil- 
ized world.  A  proper  compromise  would  seem  to  be  the 
election  of  mayor  and  aldermen  by  the  whole  body  of 
the  people,  and  the  election  by  taxpayers  of  a  "  board  of 
control"  or  " board  of  finance,"  without  whose  consent 
no  franchise  should  be  granted,  and  no  tax  levied. 

A  natural  effect  of  Turgot's  reforms  was  seen  in  the 
increasing  number  of  his  enemies  and  their  growing  bit- 
terness towards  him.  First  of  them  all  was  the  queen. 
She  persisted  in  making  enormous  pecuniary  demands 
for  worthless  favorites,  and  in  endeavoring  to  force  into 
the  most  important  places  courtiers  absolutely  unfit.  At 
the  very  beginning  Turgot  had  foreseen  this,  and  there 
still  exists  the  rough  draft  of  a  letter  to  the  king,  iu 
which,  prophesying  the  dangers  which  Louis  must  resist, 
he  had  begun  a  reference  to  the  queen  and  had  then  erased 


TURGOT  227 

it.1  No  less  virulent  was  the  king's  brother,  the  Comte  de 
Provence, — a  prince  who  made  pretensions  to  wit  and 
literary  ability.  He  had  sided  with  Turgot  in  opposing 
the  recall  of  the  Paris  Parliament,  but  now  there  came 
from  his  pen  attacks  on  the  great  minister, — always 
contemptuous,  and  sometimes  scurrilous.  With  the 
queen  and  the  king's  brother  stood  the  great  body  of 
the  courtiers.  To  understand  the  reasons  for  their 
resentment,  we  have  only  to  look  into  the  "Red  Book," 
brought  to  light  during  the  Revolution,  and  note  the 
enormous  sums  which  all  these  people  drew  from  the- 
impoverished  treasury,  and  which  Turgot  endeavored  to 
diminish.2 

Very  bitter  also  were  the  prelates  of  the  Church. 
Probably  the  humble  rural  clergy,  who  remembered  what 
Turgot  had  done  for  their  flocks  in  the  Limousin,  felt 
kindly  toward  him ;  but  the  hierarchy,  with  the  exception 
of  two  or  three  who  bore  him  personal  friendship,  never 
relaxed  their  efforts  to  thwart  him. 

At  an  earlier  period  it  might  have  been  otherwise. 
Various  writings  by  Fenelon,  in  which  he  braved  the  hos- 
tility of  Louis  XIV,  show  that  his  great  heart  would 
certainly  have  beat  in  unison  with  that  of  Turgot.  Nor 
is  it  difficult  to  believe  that  Belsunce,  the  noble  arch- 
bishop who  stood  by  his  people  at  Marseilles  during  the 
plague  of  1720-21,  religious  persecutor  though  he  was, 
would  also  have  sided  with  Turgot  in  a  clear  question 
between  the  peasantry  and  their  debased  masters.  But 
the  spirit  of  St.  Carlo  Borromeo,  of  Fenelon,  and  of 

1  For  the  striking  out  of  a  reference  to  the  queen,  see  Leon  Say's  Life 
of  Turgot,  Anderson's  translation. 

-  For  an  example  of  the  impudent  manner  in  which  the  Bourbon  princes 
of  the  blood  demanded  that  money  should  be  ladled  out  to  them  from  the 
treasury,  see  a  letter  to  Turgot  from  the  Comte  de  Provence,,  in  Levasseur, 
Eistoire  des  Classes  Ouvrieres,  tome  ii,  pp.  611,  612,  notes.  The  "Red 
Book"  (a  copy  is  in  the  Cornell  University  Library)  gives  monstrous  ex-- 
amples  of  the  way  in  which  money  was  thus  demanded  and  paid. 


228  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Belsunce  bad  given  place  to  that  of  a  very  different  class 
of  prelates.  The  measure  of  their  fitness  as  religious 
teachers  had  been  given  in  their  panegyrics  at  the  death 
of  Louis  XV,  which,  perhaps,  did  more  than  all  else  to 
undermine  their  influence.1 

The  hierarchy  was  still  determined  to  continue  the  old 
persecutions  of  the  Huguenots,  their  hope  being  that,  by 
annulling  Huguenot  marriages,  rendering  Huguenot  chil- 
dren illegitimate,  and  reviving  the  long  series  of  other 
persecutions  initiated  in  Louis  XIV 's  time,  they  might 
drive  those  who  held  the  new  faith  from  the  kingdom. 

Most  virulent  of  all,  save  the  queen  and  bishops,  in 
opposing  Turgot's  measures,  was  the  Parliament  of 
Paris.  In  every  way  it  sought  to  undermine  them.  To 
it  are  due  some  of  the  worst  methods  of  arousing  public 
hate,  which  later  brought  the  fury  of  the  Revolution 
upon  its  members  themselves. 

To  all  these  should  be  added  the  great  mass  of  hangers- 
on  of  the  court,  and  of  people  who  profited  by  the  gen- 
eral financial  corruption.  Typical  was  the  remark  of  a 
court  lady:  "Why  these  changes?  We  are  perfectly 
comfortable."  2 

On  all  sides  time-servers  fell  away  from  the  great  re- 
former more  and  more,  his  only  friends  seeming  to  be 
the  philosophers  and  a  thinking  minority  among  the  peo- 
ple. Pressure  and  intrigue  were  steadily  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  king,  and  such  machinations  were  as  cunning  as 
were  similar  plans  to  undermine  Prince  Bismarck  in  our 
own  time;  but,  unlike  these,  the  efforts  made  against 
Turgot  were  not  exposed  until  too  late. 

More  than  once  Louis  declared  that  only  he  and  Turgot 

i  There  is  in  the  Library  of  Cornell  University  a  very  remarkable  volume 
in  which  have  been  bound  together  a  large  number  of  these  sermons  at 
the  death  of  Louis  XV,  lauding,  magnifying,  and  justifying  his  character, 
and,  of  all  things  in  the  universe,  his  religious  character,  and  comparing 
him  to  David  and  other  approved  personages  in  Scripture. 

2  See  Droz,  tome  i,  p.  200,  cited  by  Alison. 


TURGOT  229 

cared  for  the  people;  but  about  a  year  and  a  half  after 
Turgot  had  become  Comptroller-General,  and  the  king 
had  pledged  to  him  hearty  support,  it  was  clear  that  this 
support  was  rapidly  weakening.  First  came  the  resig- 
nation of  Malesherbes.  His  services  in  improving  the 
administration  had  been  beyond  price,  but  he  at  last  lost 
all  hope,  both  for  Turgot 's  reforms  and  for  his  own. 
Naturally  pessimistic,  he  complained  that  Turgot 's  desire 
for  the  public  good  was  "not  merely  a  passion,  but  a 
craze."  Now  came  the  crucial  test  of  the  king.  The 
court,  in  view  of  the  immense  patronage  of  the  office  which 
Malesherbes  had  held,  urged  as  his  successor  Amelot 
de  Clugny,  a  contemptible  parasite  of  no  ability,  sure  to 
thwart  the  reforms  of  Malesherbes  and  to  restore  the  old 
order.  On  this  Turgot  wrote  letter  after  letter  to  the 
king,  pleading  most  earnestly,  not  for  himself,  but  for  the 
reforms  which  had  been  accomplished  under  Malesherbes 
and  which  must  be  lost  if  Clugny  came  into  power.  But 
the  king  made  no  answer,  save  a  cool  and  insulting  de- 
meanor whenever  he  met  the  great  minister  who  was 
trying  to  save  him.  Finally,  Turgot  wrote  a  letter  which 
has  become  famous  and  which  still  exists, — a  letter  show- 
ing entire  respect  and  deep  devotion,  but  solemnly,  hero- 
ically, with  that  power  of  prophecy  which  was  perhaps 
his  most  marvelous  gift,  reminding  the  king  that  it  was 
weakness  which  had  brought  Charles  the  First  to  the 
scaffold.     As  a  reply  to  this  letter  came  a  dismissal. 

This  was  in  1776.  Turgot  had  held  office  twenty-one 
months,  and  more  than  four  of  these  months  had  been 
passed  mainly  in  bed  under  acute  suffering.  He  had 
done  his  best ;  but  in  vain.  No  man  in  the  whole  history 
of  France  had  labored  with  more  heroism  and  foresight 
to  save  his  country. 

His  death  took  place  in  1781,  five  years  after  his  retire- 
ment, and  his  life  during  this  period  was  worthy  of  him. 
He  never  again  appeared  at  court,  but  gave  himself  up 


230  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

mainly  to  scientific  work  and  philosophical  pursuits. 
Only  once  during  that  time  did  he  make  any  appeal  to  the 
government,  and  this  took  shape  in  a  suggestion  that,  for 
the  honor  of  France,  Captain  Cook,  then  upon  one  of  his 
voyages  around  the  world,  should  be  exempt  from  the 
disabilities  of  other  Englishmen  during  the  war  then  rag- 
ing. To  the  credit  of  French  chivalry,  this  advice  was 
taken. 

No  sooner  had  Turgot  laid  down  his  high  office  than  a 
policy  of  extreme  reaction  set  in.  His  main  reforms 
were  joyfully  and  malignantly  undone.  Lampoons 
against  him  abounded.  Queen,  court,  nobles,  and  high 
clergy  devoted  themselves  with  renewed  vigor  to  restor- 
ing the  old  abuses.  Thenceforward  they  flourished,  until 
the  Eevolution,  in  a  way  very  different  from  that  pro- 
posed by  Turgot,  dealt  with  them  and  with  those  who  had 
restored  them.1 

Various  arguments  have  been  made  against  Turgot. 
First  of  these  is  the  reactionary  charge,  that  he  favored 
atheism, — that  he  brought  on  the  Revolution.  Any  one 
who  has  dispassionately  viewed  the  history  of  that  epoch 
knows  these  charges  to  be  monstrously  unjust :  that  Tur- 
got was  not  an  atheist  is  shown  abundantly  b}7-  his  writ- 
ings and  his  conduct ;  that  he  did  not  bring  on  revolution 
is  shown  by  his  myriad  efforts  to  produce  that  environ- 
ment which  alone  could  prevent  revolution. 

Next  comes  the  flijDpant  and  cynical  argument, — one  of 
those  epigrams  which  for  a  time  pass  as  truths :  the 
charge  that  in  reforming  France  he  dealt  as  does  an  anat- 
omist with  a  corpse,  and  not  as  a  wise  surgeon  deals  with 
a  living  organism.  This  has  been  widely  repeated,  but 
its  falsity  is  evident  to  any  one  who  will  study  Turgot 's 

i  For  attacks  on  Turgot  before  and  after  his  downfall,  in  the  shape 
of  pamphlets,  verses,  songs,  and  general  ridicule,  see  Gomel,  Les  Causes 
Financidres  de  la  Revolution  Frangaise,  pp.  20G  fF;  also  Foncin,  as  above, 
liv.  iii,  chap.  xvii. 


TURGOT  231 

work  at  Limoges,  and  the  statements  to  the  French  people 
which  prefaced  his  most  important  acts  as  Comptroller- 
General.  When  one  compares  his  work  with  that  of 
Eichelien  and  Sully,  it  becomes  clear  that  no  statesman 
ever  realized  more  deeply  than  Turgot  the  needs  of  all 
classes  of  the  people,  and  the  necessity  of  dealing  with 
them  as  moderately  and  gently  as  he  could.  Nor  is  there 
any  evidence  of  any  feeling  toward  the  nobility  and  clergy 
save  an  earnest  wish  to  make  the  changes,  which  would 
have  been  so  beneficial  to  them,  as  satisfactory  as  pos- 
sible. But  so  me  remedy  to  the  evils  which  were  destroy- 
ing France  he  must  administer,  and  it  must  be  a  real 
remedy.  Within  twelve  years  after  his  death  the  whole 
world  saw  with  horror  the  results  of  its  rejection. 

Again,  there  is  the  English  High  Tory  argument,  best 
stated  by  Alison.  His  main  charge  is  that  Turgot  was 
a  doctrinaire,  who  wished  to  rebuild  France  "on  strictly 
philosophic  principles"  and  on  no  other.  So  far  was 
Turgot  from  being  a  doctrinaire  that  he  was  perhaps  the 
most  shrewd,  practical,  far-sighted  observer  of  actual 
conditions  in  the  entire  kingdom.  Typical  were  his  long 
journeys  through  the  rural  districts  with  Gournay,  his 
letters  to  the  country  curates,  his  discussions  with  the 
poorest  and  humblest  of  peasants  who  could  throw  light 
on  the  actual  conditions  of  the  country.  His  own  reply 
to  the  charge  that  he  unduly  pressed  doctrinaire  meas- 
ures may  be  found  in  one  of  his  notes  to  a  hostile  keeper 
of  the  seals,  in  1776,  which  runs  as  follows :  "I  know  as 
well  as  any  one  that  it  is  not  always  advisable  to  do  the 
best  thing  possible,  and  that,  though  we  should  not  tire 
of  correcting  little  by  little  the  defects  of  an  ancient  con- 
stitution, the  work  must  go  forward  slowly,  in  proportion 
as  public  opinion  and  the  course  of  events  render  changes 
practicable."  x 

Closely  connected  with  this  charge  is  the  statement  that 

i  See  citation  in  Say's  Turgot,  Anderson's  translation,  p.  105. 


232  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

his  insuccess  was  due  to  his  lack  of  finesse  with  the  king, 
lack  of  suppleness  with  the  queen  and  princes  of  the  blood, 
lack  of  deference  for  the  nobility  and  clergy. 

But  the  fact  remains  that  in  such  desperate  cases  appli- 
cations of  rose  water  and  burnings  of  incense  cannot  be 
substituted  for  surgery  and  cautery.  A  sufficient  answer 
to  the  contention  for  such  pleasing  treatment  is  found  in 
the  career  of  Turgot's  successor,  Calonne, — the  "great" 
Calonne, — who,  while  evidently  believing  in  the  funda- 
mental ideas  of  Turgot,  applied  them  tactfully,  deferen- 
tially, and  soothingly.  He  it  was  who  said  to  the  queen, 
* '  Madam,  if  what  you  ask  is  possible,  it  is  done ;  if  impos- 
sible, it  shall  be  done."  He  petted  and  soothed  king, 
queen,  court,  everybody;  delayed  every  effective  opera- 
tion or  remedy,  obligingly, — until  all  found  themselves, 
past  help,  in  the  abyss  of  revolution.1 

Still  another  charge  has  been  made  against  Turgot 
by  sundry  fanatics  of  the  sort  who  believe  in  bringing- 
in  extreme  democracy  by  decree,  rather  than  by  educa- 
tion and  practice, — whether  in  France  of  the  eighteenth 
century  or  in  the  Philippine  Islands  of  the  twentieth. 
They  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  he  proposed  a  property 
qualification  for  suffrage.  A  French  historian,  M. 
Aulard,  dwells  on  the  fact  that  Turgot  composed  his 
village  municipalities  of  land  owners,  his  city  municipal- 
ities of  householders,  and  made  property  the  base  of  the 
right  of  the  citizens  generally.  And  he  adds  that 
when  France  endeavored,  in  1787,  to  make  a  general 
application  of  Turgot's  plan,  those  only  were  admitted 
to  the  Paris  elections  who  paid  at  least  ten  francs  of 
direct  taxes,  and  those  only  were  eligible  to  vote  for 
members  of  the  municipal  assemblies  who  paid  at  least 
thirty  francs  annually  of  direct  taxes.2 

i  For  an  excellent  comparison  between  Turgot  and  Calonne  in  this  re- 
spect, see  Sny,  Anderson's  translation,  p.  200. 

2  For    Turgot's    views    on    a    property    qualification    for    suffrage,    see 


TURGOT  233 

But  M.  Aulard,  without  intending  it,  then  gives  us  an 
admirable  answer  to  any  charge  of  narrowness  or  want 
of  foresight  based  on  these  facts ;  for  he  reminds  us  that 
the  example  of  America  had  fortified  these  ideas,  that  the 
constitutions  of  the  thirteen  states  were,  as  a  rule,  based 
upon  the  idea  that  no  man  could  be  free  and,  conse- 
quently, worthy  to  exercise  civic  rights,  unless  he  had 
a  certain  financial  independence.  The  fact  that  Turgot 
was  as  far  advanced  as  the  foremost  Americans  of  his 
time  may  well  be  pleaded  in  his  favor.  He  advocated 
evolution  rather  than  revolution.  Like  the  fathers  of  our 
own  republic,  he  preferred  to  make  a  beginning  suited  to 
the  time  and  let  future  events  determine  how  rapidly  and 
how  far  the  suffrage  should  be  extended.  That  Turgot 
was  right  in  this  is  amply  shown  by  the  fact  that  uni- 
versal suffrage — shortly  afterward  adopted  in  France 
— led,  first,  to  terrorism  and  the  reign  of  murder  and 
pillage,  and,  afterward,  at  two  different  epochs,  to  the 
return  of  absolute  monarchy  under  the  two  Napoleons. 
And  Turgot 's  wisdom  is  shown,  also,  by  the  contrasting 
fact  that  in  America  the  system  of  a  slight  restriction 
of  the  suffrage  has  invariably  proved  to  be  but  a  pre- 
liminary stage  in  the  steady  and  inevitable  evolution  of 
democracy. 

If  Turgot  erred,  he  erred  in  company  with  the  founder 
of  American  democracy,  Thomas  Jefferson,  who,  in  a 
letter  to  John  Adams,  speaking  of  the  French  people  and 
of  their  incapacity  for  governing  themselves  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  virtually  approved  the  ideas  of 
Turgot.  So  far  from  laying  it  down  as  a  universal  prin- 
ciple that  "everything  should  be  done  for  the  people 
but  nothing  by  them,"  Turgot,  as  we  constantly  see,  pro- 
posed by  a  wide  and  thorough  system  of  education  and 
by  the  steady  development  of  a  political  practice  in  the 

Aulard,  Eistoire  Politique  de  la  Revolution  Frangaise,  Paris,  1901,  p.  27, 
citing  Turgot,  (JBuvres,  ed  Daire,  t.  ii,  p.  511. 


234  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

French  bourgeoisie  and  peasantry,  to  initiate  the  entire 
nation  gradually  into  self-government.1 

Napoleon  did,  indeed,  openly  avow  and  act  upon  this 
doctrine  imputed  to  Turgot;  but  Napoleon's  purpose  was 
not  to  uplift  the  French  people  into  fitness  for  self- 
government,  but  to  keep  them  permanently  beneath  his 
throne. 

The  charge  of  too  great  haste  has  also  been  frequently 
made  against  Turgot 's  measures,  and  most  powerfully 
of  all  by  M.  Levasseur,  Professor  of  Political  Economy 
and  Director  of  the  College  de  France — certainly  one  of 
the  foremost  authorities,  if  not  the  foremost,  on  all  ques- 
tions relating  to  men  and  measures  which  concern  the 
commerce  and  industry  of  France.  "While  considering 
Turgot  one  of  the  greatest  men  whom  France  has  pro- 
duced, he  compares  him,  to  his  disadvantage,  with 
Eichelieu  and  Colbert.  But  Richelieu  dealt  with 
problems  far  less  complicated  than  those  which  fell  to 
the  lot  of  Turgot,  and  Colbert  had  twenty-two  years  in 
office,  under  a  monarch  who  stood  by  him ;  while  Turgot 
had  less  than  twenty-two  months,  under  a  monarch  who 
deserted  him.  M.  Levasseur  thinks  that  Turgot  ought  to 
have  surmounted  the  numerous  obstacles  in  his  path 
"little  by  little  and  one  by  one";  but  the  eminent 
economist  seems  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  opposi- 
tion to  each  and  every  one  of  his  measures  was  practically 
as  great  as  that  to  all  combined,  and  that  time  was  an 
element  of  more  essential  importance  in  Turgot 's  work 
than  it  had  been  in  the  work  of  either  of  the  other  two 
great  statesmen. 

For  what  Turgot 's  friends  have  called  the  vigor,  and 
what  his  critics  have  called  the  haste,  with  which  he  con- 

i  For  the  influence  of  Turgot  on  the  Constituent  Assembly  and  for  John 
Adams'  reply  to  the  criticisms  upon  Turgot,  in  1787,  see  H.  E.  Bourne, 
on  "American  Constitutional  Precedents  in  the  French  National  Assem- 
bly," American  Historical  Review,  vol.  viii   (1903),  pp.  4GG  et  seq. 


TURGOT  235 

ducted  public  affairs,  lie  often  gave,  in  his  discussions 
with  friends,  a  pathetic  personal  reason,  namely,  that 
the  Turgots  always  died  in  middle  life,  and  that  what 
was  to  be  done  he  must  do  at  once;  this  saying  proved 
sadly  prophetic.  But  there  was  a  greater,  more  states- 
manlike reason.  Turgot's  prophetic  gift  showed  him 
that  what  he  offered  was  the  best  chance  for  France  and 
the  last  chance  for  the  monarchy;  that  promptness  in 
decision  and  vigor  in  execution  had  become  the  only  hope ; 
that  reforms,  to  prevent  a  wild  outburst  of  revolution, 
must  be  made  then  or  never.1 

Again,  sundry* <«good  and  true  men,  like  M.  Leonce  de 
Lavergne,  point  out  minor  defects  in  Turgot's  manner 
and  career  which  they  think  mistakes,  and,  as  the  crown- 
ing mistake  of  all,  the  fact  that  he  did  not  summon  the 
States-General. 

All  great  statesmen  have  the  defects  of  their 
qualities,  and  all  make  mistakes;  but  the  refusal 
to  summon  the  States-General  would  probably  be 
voted  by  the  vast  majority  of  thinking  men,  not  a 
mistake,  but  an  evidence  of  Turgot's  wisdom  and 
foresight.  Eight  years  after  Turgot's  death  the 
States-General  was  summoned,  and  it  plunged  France 
at  once  into  that  series  of  revolutions  which  has  now 
lasted  more  than  a  century.  Turgot's  methods  were  not 
revolutionary,  but  evolutionary.  He  did  not  believe  that 
a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  could  be  brought  in  by 
an  illiterate  mob,  whether  let  loose  in  a  city  or  throughout 
a  nation.    As  a  historical  scholar,  he  knew  that  every 

i  For  M.  Levasseur's  judgment  upon  Turgot,  in  which  the  above  crit- 
icism is  made,  see  his  Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvrieres,  tome  ii,  p.  606  et  seq. 
It  is,  of  course,  with  the  greatest  diffidence  that  I  presume  to  differ  from 
so  eminent  an  authority,  but  possibly  one  looking  at  the  history  of  France 
from  a  distance  may  occasionally  get  nearer  the  truth  than  would  a  far 
more  eminent  authority  immediately  on  the  ground.  The  traveler  who 
looks  at  Mont  Blanc  from  a  distance  may  obtain  a  clearer  idea  of  its 
relations  to  the  peaks  which  surround  it  than  can  one  who  dwells  nearer 
the  mountain. 


236  SEVEN  GKEAT  STATESMEN 

republic  ruled  by  uneducated  masses  had  ended  in  despot- 
ism. As  a  practical  observer  of  human  affairs,  he  be- 
lieved that  to  have  anything  like  a  free  government,  the 
first  requisite  is  popular  moral  and  intellectual  education, 
and,  as  we  have  seen,  his  system  was  shaped  toward 
developing  a  people  who  might  gradually  be  fully  en- 
trusted with  political  power.  Here  again  we  may  cite 
Thomas  Jefferson,  whose  faith  in  democracy  will  hardly 
be  questioned.  In  those  most  interesting  letters,  writ- 
ten toward  the  end  of  his  life,  reviewing  events  which  he 
had  known  intimately,  he  admits  that  the  French  were 
not  in  his  time  fit  for  unlimited  democracy.1 

Yet  another  objection  is  that  Turgot  lacked  tact;  and 
as  proof  is  adduced  his  final  letter  to  the  king,  alluding 
to  the  fate  of  Charles  I.  The  answer  to  this  is  simple. 
That  final  letter  was  written  when  Turgot  saw  that  the 
end  had  come,  that  the  king  was  giving  himself  into  the 
hands  of  his  enemies,  that  the  only  remedy  must  be 
heroic.  Then  it  was  that,  like  a  great  prophet  of  Israel, 
he  firmly  pointed  to  the  past  and  told  the  king  the  truth. 
Looking  across  the  abyss  of  revolution  which  separates 
the  France  of  to-day  from  the  Bourbon  monarchy,  the 
utterance  seems  divinely  inspired.  Rightly  judged,  it 
presents  one  of  the  greatest  proofs  of  Turgot 's  fitness 
for  his  high  mission  and  of  his  claim  upon  universal 
humanity. 

And,  finally,  the  objection  is  made  that  he  failed.  As 
to  this,  we  may  simply  say  that  France  had  come  to  the 
parting  of  the  ways.  One  way  seemed  hard.  It  led 
through  reforms  soberly  planned  and  steadily  developed 
— over  a  solid  basis  of  institutions  thoughtfully  laid  and 
adjusted,  hedged  in  by  ideas  of  duties  as  well  as  of  rights, 
lighted  by  education — towards  constitutional  liberty. 
This  was  the  way  planned  by  Turgot.     The  other  way 

1  See  LGonce  de  Lavergne,  Les  Economistes  Frangais  du  Dix-lluiMme 
Sidcle,  essay  on  Turgot,  passim,  and  especially  p.  253. 


TUEGOT  237 

seemed  easy.  But  it  led,  first,  through  the  stagnant 
marsh  of  unreasoning  conservatism; — then  through 
dikes  broken  by  unreasoning  radicalism; — then,  by  a 
wild  rush,  through  declamation  and  intrigue;  through 
festivals  of  fraternity  and  massacres ;  through  unlimited 
paper  wealth  and  bottomless  bankruptcy;  through  mob 
rule  and  Caesarism ;  through  sentimentalism  and  murder ; 
through  atheism  and  fetichism;  through  the  Red  Terror 
and  the  White  Terror ;  through  the  First  Empire  and  the 
Invasion ;  through  the  Second  Empire,  the  Invasion,  and 
the  Commune ;  through  proscription  at  home,  wars  of  con- 
quest abroad,  and  enormous  indemnities  to  be  paid  for 
them;  through  a  whole  century  of  revolutions — some- 
times tragical,  sometimes  farcical,  but  always  fruitful  in 
new  spawn  of  declaimers  and  intriguers.  At  the  parting 
of  these  two  ways  stood  Turgot,  looking  far  down  along 
them  both; — marking  with  clearness  of  vision  what  lay 
in  either  path; — seeing  and  showing  what  king,  queen, 
nobility,  clergy,  and  thousands  on  thousands  of  French 
citizens  realized  only  when  brought  to  pauperism,  prison, 
exile,  and  the  guillotine.  He  wrought  and  strove  like  a 
Titan  to  mark  out  the  better  path, — to  fit  the  French 
people  for  it, — to  guide  his  generation  into  it, — and  in 
this  he  failed ;  but,  in  his  failure,  he  was  one  of  the  great- 
est men  the  modern  world  has  known. 

For,  across  the  revolutionary  abyss, — through  the 
storms  of  demagogism  and  the  conquests  of  imperialism, 
— above  the  noise  of  orations  heralding  new  millenniums, 
and  of  drums  and  cannon  dismissing  them, — his  calm, 
strong  counsel,  rejected  by  the  eighteenth  century,  has 
been  received  and  developed  by  the  nineteenth  and 
twentieth  centuries.  Every  regime  since  that  which 
perished  with  the  king  he  tried  to  save — and  not  only  in 
France  but  in  all  other  civilized  countries — has  been 
made  to  hear  and  heed  him.  His  statue,  which  looks 
down   upon  the  great  quadrangle   of  the  Louvre — the. 


238  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

scene  of  so  much  glory  and  folly — fitly  represents  him. 
Kings,  emperors,  presidents,  have  there  been  welcomed 
as  saviors  and  dismissed  as  malefactors;  but  Turgot, 
steadily  breasting  the  tides  of  unreason,  remains  to  point 
out  those  principles  of  liberty,  justice,  righteousness, 
tolerance,  education,  which  alone  can  give  to  any  nation 
lasting  prosperity  and  true  glory. 


STEIN 


STEIN 


MANY  events  in  history  show  the  inherent  weakness 
of  absolutism,  but  none  in  modern  times  more 
vividly  than  the  eclipse  of  Prussia  and  the  destruction  of 
the  old  German  Empire  by  Napoleon. 

Frederick  the  Great  had  taken  his  father's  army  (all 
save  "The  Tall  Grenadiers"),  his  father's  treasury,  his 
father's  principles  of  administration, — had  developed 
and  used  all  these  with  genius ;  but  there  was  in  his  whole 
work  just  one  fully  developed  man — himself.  He  it  was 
who  thought  out  the  problems,  laid  the  plans,  pushed  on 
work,  baffled  adversaries ;  and,  despite  sundry  errors  and 
absurdities,  he  did  all  this  with  genius. 

At  his  command,  the  nobility  marched  to  death  or 
glory;  the  middle  class  manufactured  and  merchandized 
to  fill  his  treasury ;  the  peasantry  laid  down  their  lives  as 
his  soldiers  or  as  serfs  in  ill-requited  toil.  The  individual 
was  nothing ;  the  state,  everything. 

In  the  upper  stratum  of  the  population  stood  army 
officers,  high  civil  officials,  clergy,  and  men  of  letters.  The 
army  officers  had  inherited  stern  ideas  of  duty,  honor,  and 
discipline  from  the  days  of  the  Great  Elector  and  his  still 
greater  grandson,  but  their  system  and  training  were  out- 
worn; during  the  last  years  of  the  eighteenth  and  first 
years  of  the  nineteenth  century  they  had  "learned  noth- 
ing and  forgotten  nothing."  Many  of  these  men  were 
valuable,  some  of  them  admirable,  but  very  few  were  of 
use  in  great  affairs ;  their  power  to  originate,  to  direct, 
to  take  responsibility,  had  been  gradually  superseded  by 
unreasoning  obedience.     The  clergy  had  some  exceptional 

16  241 


242  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

men,  but  in  general  had  become  dull,  heavy,  stupefied  by 
the  Protestant  orthodoxy  and  intolerance  which  set  in 
after  the  death  of  Luther.  The  great  German  thinkers 
of  the  modern  epoch  were  already  at  work,  and  power- 
fully; but  as  yet  they  had  not  taken  full  hold  upon  the 
German  mind  and  heart :  Kant  and  Schiller  had  begun 
their  message,  but  their  full  strength  was  yet  to  be 
revealed. 

In  the  towns  remained  the  mediaeval  medley  of  corpora- 
tions, guilds,  classes  more  or  less  privileged,  but  with  the 
old  Teutonic  spirit  of  independence  long  since  taken  out 
of  them. 

Beneath  absolutism  and  various  intermediate  strata, 
there  remained  the  lowest  and  largest  stratum  of  all — 
two-thirds  of  the  whole  population,  including,  virtually, 
the  whole  rural  population,  subject  to  mediaeval  exactions 
and  restrictions — and,  among  these,  a  widespread  body  of 
serfs. 

Even  during  the  lifetime  of  the  great  Frederick  there 
had  come  warnings  of  European  trouble.  The  French 
philosophers  had  begun  their  work.  Voltaire  had  set  in 
motion  currents  of  thought  sure  to  bring  storms; 
Eousseau  had  spread  new  ideas  of  right  very  dangerous 
to  despotism,  not  merely  in  France,  but  in  all  countries ; 
yet  Frederick  steered  his  ship  of  state  steadily  in  spite  of 
these  ideas — sometimes,  indeed,  by  means  of  them. 

But  in  1786  he  died,  and  the  times  demanded  that  his 
successor  be  as  great  as  he,  or  greater.  To  adjust  the  old 
state  to  the  new  ideas,  there  was  needed  not  only  a  great 
ruler,  but  a  great  reformer,  a  genius  hardly  less  than 
miraculous ;  and,  at  this  time,  of  all  times,  Frederick  the 
Great  was  succeeded  by  Frederick  William  the  Fat. 

He  was  the  most  worthless  of  the  Hohenzollerns. 
Herein  is  seen  the  fatal  vice  of  absolutism — it  demands  a 
constant  succession  of  men  of  genius  on  the  throne,  and 


STEIN  243 

such  a  succession  never  has  been  and  never  will  be  seen. 
A  Frederick  the  Great  has  generally  been  soon  followed 
by  a  Frederick  William  the  Fat;  a  Charlemagne  by  a 
.Charles  the  Simple ;  a  Charles  V  by  a  Philip  II ;  an  Eliza- 
beth by  a  line  of  Stuarts ;  a  Henry  IV  by  a  Louis  XIII ; 
a  Napoleon  I  by  a  Napoleon  III ;  a  Joseph  II  by  a  Francis 
I ;  a  Peter  the  Great  by  an  Alexis ;  a  Catherine  by  a  Paul ; 
a  Nicholas  I  by  a  Nicholas  II. 

The  new  Prussian  king,  in  essentials,  was  much  like 
Louis  XV  of  France — perhaps  a  better-hearted  man,  but, 
as  a  monarch,  worse  than  worthless.  Each  of  these  two 
sovereigns  received  in  early  years  the  title  of  "well  be- 
loved";— the  French  king  being  called  "Le  Bleu-Aime," 
and  the  Prussian  ' '  Der  Viel-Geliebte. ' '  Both  were  good- 
natured;  both  lazily  wished  their  subjects  well;  both 
firmly  believed  that  their  subjects  existed  for  them,  and 
not  they  for  their  subjects;  both  were  hopelessly  li- 
centious, and  at  the  same  time  excessively  orthodox ;  both 
were  consequently  brought  to  grief  by  the  wiles  of  women 
and  priests ;  each  was  very  anxious,  while  pampering  his 
body,  to  save  his  soul — and  to  save  the  souls  of  his  people ; 
each  had  an  instinctive  dread  of  the  new  philosophy,  and 
both  resorted  to  the  same  futile  means  of  checking  it. 

Decay  in  Prussia,  and,  indeed,  throughout  Germany, 
now  became  rapid.  Most  effective  of  all  disintegrating 
influences  were  two,  and  both  mainly  from  France : — the 
influence  of  the  old  French  corruption  and  of  the  new 
French  freedom.  It  was  like  applying  to  granite  first 
fire,  then  water. 

For  the  only  time  in  its  history,  Prussia  was  now 
largely  influenced  by  courtesans  and  favorites,  after  the 
Louis  XV  manner.  Frederick  I,  seventy  years  before, 
had  shown  some  tendency  toward  Bourbon  methods,  but 
his  good  sense,  inherited  from  his  father,  the  Great 
Elector,  prevented  their  becoming  dominant;  Frederick 


244  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

William  I  had  kept  them  out  by  brutality ;  Frederick  the 
Great,  by  common  sense ;  and,  if  either  of  these  committed 
sins,  they  were  not  flaunted  before  his  people. 

The  internal  administration  of  the  new  king,  Frederick 
William  II,  soon  became,  in  its  essential  features,  like 
that  which  had  impoverished  France  and  almost  all  the 
lesser  courts  and  governments  of  Germany.  For  favor- 
ites and  mistresses  he  carved  estates  from  the  public  do- 
main, and  lavished  treasure,  patents  of  nobility,  and 
orders  of  chivalry.  His  example  spread  his  own  view  of 
life,  first  through  the  court  and  Berlin  society,  and  then 
through  the  higher  classes  of  the  whole  country.  Corrup- 
tion came,  then  extravagance,  then  debts  and  dishonesty. 
Wollner,  a  cabinet  minister,  distinguished  himself  by 
edicts  in  the  interest  of  the  old  Protestant  orthodoxy, 
though  expressly  allowing  the  clergy  to  disbelieve,  if  they 
would  keep  their  disbelief  to  themselves.  He  strength- 
ened the  censorship  of  the  press,  instituted  doctrinal  test 
examinations,  and  gave  special  instructions  to  prevent 
any  new  views  filtering  down  among  the  people.  Kant, 
at  Konigsberg,  the  future  glory  of  Prussia  and  of  Ger- 
many, was,  indeed,  elaborating  a  better  philosophy;  his 
work  in  establishing  new  foundations  for  morality  was 
the  greatest  single  force  in  human  thought  during  the 
nineteenth  century ;  but  he  showed  some  tendency  toward 
freedom  of  opinion,  and  this  brought  from  Berlin  stern 
reproofs ;  he  was  told  to  hold  his  peace,  lest  worse  befall 
him. 

The  external  policy  of  the  new  king  differed  no  less 
widely  from  that  of  his  predecessor.  The  great  Fred- 
erick had  concentrated  his  efforts  upon  the  safety  and 
welfare  of  his  own  country;  but  Frederick  William  the 
Fat  scattered  his  forces  in  efforts,  more  or  less  vague,  to 
accomplish  something  noteworthy  in  other  countries. 
He  meddled  and  muddled  and  gained  neither  strength 
nor  glory.     The  Prussian  army  was  sent  into  the  Nether- 


STEIN  245 

lands  to  aid  one  of  the  parties  there,  and  won  some 
trifling  victories;  but  the  efforts  of  the  Prussian  For- 
eign Office  to  continue  the  work  of  Frederick  the  Great 
within  the  limits  of  Germany  resulted  mainly  in  a  series 
of  farces,  the  dupe  being  sometimes  Prussia  and  some- 
times Austria.1 

While  this  was  going  on,  the  flood  of  French  liberty, 
equality,  and  fraternity  seemed  about  to  break  over  all 
barriers  raised  by  German  officialism.  Three  years  after 
the  accession  of  Frederick  William  the  Fat,  the  French 
Eevolution  burst  forth,  showing  as  yet  little  of  its  evil 
side,  but  warming  and  stirring  all  Europe  by  its  enuncia- 
tion of  new  truths.  The  resistance  of  the  States-General 
to  king  and  court,  the  establishment  of  the  National 
Assembly  in  apparent  harmony  with  the  monarch,  the 
renunciation  of  privileges  by  the  nobility,  the  pamphlets 
of  Sieves,  the  speeches  of  Bailly  and  Mirabeau,  leavened 
German  thought. 

What  was  done  in  Prussia  to  meet  this  tide?  Worse 
than  nothing.  A  few  concessions  as  to  military  service 
were  flung  to  the  privileged  classes ;  a  few  concessions  of 
milder  discipline  to  the  army;  a  few  shif tings  of  burdens 
from  the  upper  classes,  who  made  themselves  heard,  upon 
the  lower  classes,  who  were  dumb ;  but  the  main  mass  of 
abuses  in  Prussia  and  in  every  other  German  state  re- 
mained. 

The  political  action  of  the  Prussian  Kingdom,  both 
internal  and  external,  at  this  period  was  profoundly  im- 
moral. In  spite  of  pledges  to  protect  the  integrity  of 
Poland,  the  partitioning  of  that  wretched  country  went  on. 
No  doubt  Poland  had  seemed  unfit  to  exist  as  a  nation; 
no  doubt  her  government  had  been  the  most  pre-pos- 

1  For  a  brief  statement  of  some  other  differences  between  Frederick  the 
Great  and  Frederick  William  the  Fat,  see  Gneist,  Denkschriften  des  Frei- 
herrn  von  Stein,  p.  3.  For  interesting  particulars  regarding  the  rise  and 
progress  of  Wollner,  see  Guy  S.  Ford,  in  the  American  Historical  Review, 
Jan.,  1910. 


246  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

terous  in  Christendom;  her  nobles  anarchic;  her  labor- 
ing classes  priest-ridden,  and  consequently  ignorant  and 
hopeless;  no  doubt  the  whole  Polish  people  who  came 
under  Austria,  Prussia,  and  even  Russia,  were  material 
gainers;  but  seizing  and  appropriating  an  independent 
nation  in  time  of  peace  was  setting  a  precedent  which  the 
partitioning  powers  had,  and  still  have,  reason  to  lament 
— bitterly. 

Meantime,  the  French  Revolution  was  passing  into  its 
more  threatening  phase,  and  Prussia  made  new  blunders. 
The  crowned  heads  of  Europe  took  counsel  together, 
among  them,  especially,  the  German  Emperor  Leopold 
and  King  Frederick  William  the  Fat;  and  there  was 
issued  the  Declaration  of  Pillnitz,  which  simply  drew 
upon  Germany  the  French  fury  of  1792.  In  one  of  his 
admirable  essays,  Von  Sybel  declares  the  idea  that  the 
allied  monarchs  made  war  against  France  a  popular 
fallacy.  This  assertion  seems  unworthy  of  so  great  a 
historian.  Technically  speaking,  the  war  was  made  by 
France ;  really,  it  was  made  by  the  powers  allied  against 
her:  the  French,  indeed,  declared  war,  but  the  declara- 
tion by  the  allied  monarchs  had  made  war  inevitable; 
the  Republicans  at  Paris  had  the  wit  to  see  this;  the 
Royalists  at  Berlin  and  Vienna  had  not. 

The  armies  of  Prussia  and  Austria  were  now  pushed 
against  France,  and  at  first  the  French  troops  gave  way. 
In  some  cases  panic  seized  them:  they  threw  down  their 
arms  and  fled  for  their  lives,  strikingly  like  the  Union 
troops  invading  the  South  at  the  beginning  of  our  own 
Civil  War.  Essentially,  their  great  panic  near  St. 
Menehould  was  amazingly  like  our  great  panic  at  Bull 
Run.  But  soon  all  was  changed.  Prussians  and  Aus- 
trians  wore  out  their  strength  in  intrigues  regarding 
their  shares  in  the  plunder  of  Poland,  and  in  wretched 
squabbles  for  precedence;  worst  of  all,  they  issued  the 
famous  Brunswick  Manifesto,  which,  by  its  threats,  in- 


STEIN  247 

fused  into  every  Frenchman  the  courage  of  desperation. 
The  Germans  now  began  to  be  pushed  back;  better  com- 
manders arose  among  the  French,  who  beat  the  allies, 
first  at  Valmy  and  Jemappes,  and  later  all  along  the 
Khine,  until  at  last,  in  1795,  Prussia  escaped  from  the 
whole  complication  by  making  the  Peace  of  Basle — there- 
by deserting  her  ally,  Austria,  allowing  France  to  take 
all  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  including  Belgium  and 
Holland,  and  receiving,  as  a  bribe,  permission  to  deal 
with  the  lesser  North  German  States  as  she  chose, — to 
annex  and  oppress  them  to  her  heart's  content. 

While  Prussia  was  thus  rapidly  losing  the  strength 
and  prestige  given  her  by  Frederick  the  Great,  Frederick 
William,  "the  well  beloved,"  went  on  with  his  pleasures. 
Our  Gouverneur  Morris,  who  was  presented  to  him  at 
court  in  1797,  wrote  home  that,  robust  as  the  king  seemed 
to  be,  it  was  evident  that  his  time  was  to  be  short.  This 
prophecy  of  the  shrewd  American  was  realized  even 
more  rapidly  than  he  expected,  for  Frederick  William  II 
died  that  same  year,  and  there  came  to  the  throne  his 
son,  Frederick  William  III. 

The  new  king  seemed  more  unpromising  than  his 
father  in  every  respect  save  in  morals.  He  was  timid, 
awkward,  undecided,  slow.  He  had  been  wretchedly 
educated,  partly  under  bigots,  partly  under  debauchees; 
his  spirit  had  been  crushed  by  the  favorites  of  his  father; 
he  was  at  first,  to  all  appearance,  the  most  forlorn  and 
hopeless  Hohenzollern  who  ever  existed;  and  yet  deep 
in  his  heart  and  mind  was  a  spark  of  that  genius  which 
has  given  to  the  Hohenzollerns  the  German  Empire.  At 
his  accession  this  showed  itself  in  some  spasmodic  at- 
tempts at  reform:  the  Countess  of  Lichtenau,  who 
through  his  father  had  ruled  the  court,  he  banished,  and 
Wollner  he  drove  from  the  service;  but  soon,  though  he 
kept  clean  and  clear  from  his  father's  surroundings,  he 
subsided  into  the  hands  of  the   old  politicians  of  his 


248  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

father's  time — tricksters  like  Haugwitz,  Lucchesini,  and 

the  like. 

Meantime,  history  went  on  in  France,  also,  and  a  very 
different  history.  The  French  Revolution  had  raised 
vast  armies  and  developed  great  generals,  and,  among 
these,  Bonaparte.  France  had  thrown  off  her  old 
shackles,  distributed  her  church  lands  and  the  estates 
of  refractory  nobles,  transformed  her  serfs  into  free 
citizens,  and  developed  the  courage  of  desperation. 

Germany  and  Prussia  clung  to  the  old  system;  even 
the  people  refused  to  accept  reforms ;  Joseph  II  of  Aus- 
tria, for  his  efforts  to  better  his  country,  had  gained  from 
the  people,  apparently,  nothing  but  curses,  and  died  of  a 
broken  heart.     The  game  of  the  French,  especially  after 
Bonaparte  had  arrived  as  "the  man  on  horseback" — the 
natural   result   of   liberty   gone   mad — was   easy;   they 
played  the  continental  governments  against  one  another, 
bribing  some,  crushing  others ;  and,  to  prevent  the  larger 
states  from  becoming  too  powerful,  they  grouped  the 
smaller  states   and  tied  them,  by  their  ambitions,   to 
France — thus,  in  due  time,   creating  the  kingdoms   of 
Bavaria,   Wiirtemberg,   Westphalia,   the    Confederation 
of  the  Ehine,  and  various  petty  satrapies,  in  which  hopes 
of  gain  from  France  were  substituted  for  loyalty  to  Ger- 
many.   In  1803  large  parts  of  Germany,  outside  of  these 
greater  divisions,  were  divided  up  to  make  bribes — for 
such  use  among  German  rulers  as  the  conqueror  might 
think    best;    fifty    thousand    square    miles,    with    three 
millions  of  inhabitants,  were  thus  appropriated,  and  in 
this  process  over  two  hundred  small  German  states  were 
deprived  of  their  sovereignty  and  extinguished.     As  in 
the  time  of  Bismarck,  sixty  years  later,  princes  who  had 
steadily  refused  to  make  any  concessions  to  patriotism 
or  right  reason  were  crushed  and  ground  out  of  existence 
by  men  of  "blood  and  iron." 


STEIN  249 

Austria,  not  being  supported  by  Prussia,  was  stripped 
by  successive  conquests,  humiliated  at  Ulm  by  one  of  the 
most  ignominious  capitulations  in  history,  and  finally, 
in  1805,  crushed  at  the  Battle  of  Austerlitz,  and  forced  to 
submit  to  the  terrible  Peace  of  Pressburg,  which  de- 
prived her  of  her  most  important  outlying  territories  on 
all  sides. 

Now  began  a  dire  series  of  humiliations  for  Prussia. 
Had  she  joined  heartily  with  Austria  and  Russia  against 
Napoleon,  the  result  might  have  been  widely  different; 
but  she  dallied  and  delayed  until  the  Treaty  of  Pressburg 
had  ruined  her  natural  allies,  apparently  forever.  As 
usual  in  the  early  days  of  Frederick  William  III,  before 
he  had  been  schooled  by  disaster,  he  delayed  until  too 
late.  Before  the  battle  of  Austerlitz  he  had  sent  Haug- 
witz  to  meet  Napoleon,  with  an  ultimatum  threatening 
war;  but  the  interview  was  put  off  until  the  battle  had 
been  fought,  and  that  changed  everything — Napoleon 
having  utterly  crushed  Austria  and  driven  off  Russia, 
Haugwitz  was  obliged  to  put  the  ultimatum  in  his  pocket 
and  pretend  that  he  had  been  sent  to  propose  mediation 
for  the  benefit  of  Europe  and  to  congratulate  the  con- 
queror on  his  victory.  Napoleon  knew  that  Haugwitz 
was  lying,  and  Haugwitz  knew  that  Napoleon  knew  that 
he  was  lying;  but  a  private  letter  from  the  Prussian  king 
allowing  Haugwitz  to  take  the  responsibility,  they  now 
made  the  Treaty  of  Schonbrunn, — a  treaty  apparently 
most  favorable  to  Prussia,  but  really  the  greatest  humil- 
iation in  her  history.  For  Napoleon,  knowing  the  Prus- 
sian need  of  peace,  promised  that,  if  Prussia  would  sepa- 
rate herself  wholly  from  the  allies,  he  would  give  her 
Hanover.  This  was  a  masterpiece  of  rascality.  If  any 
new  territory  was  coveted  by  Prussia,  it  was  Hanover; 
but  Hanover  belonged  to  the  ruling  house  of  Great 
Britain ;  for  Prussia  to  take  it  was  to  make  Great  Britain 


250  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

her  bitter  enemy,  and  to  make  all  right-thinking  Euro- 
peans despise  her.1 

The  Prussian  government  was  very  reluctant  to  make 
itself  an  accomplice  in  Napoleon's  system  of  robbery; 
but,  as  he  grew  stronger  every  day,  and  showed  decided 
signs  of  offering  less  favorable  terms,  the  treaty  was  at 
last  ratified.  Napoleon  seemed  to  delight  in  making  it 
as  humiliating  as  possible — giving  Hanover,  nominally, 
but  insisting  on  taking,  in  return,  so  much  other  terri- 
tory that  the  advantage  to  Prussia  by  this  dishonor  was, 
after  all,  next  to  nothing. 

But  this  was  merely  a  beginning.  Napoleon's  genius 
in  scoundrelism  was  as  wonderful  as  his  genius  in  war; 
having  made  the  Prussian  king  his  accomplice,  he  treated 
him  like  a  lackey,  forced  him  to  send  away  his  capable 
and  patriotic  foreign  minister,  Hardenberg,  to  take  back 
Haugwitz,  and  to  allow  Prussian  territory  to  be  treated 
as  virtually  French. 

Worse  still,  Prussia  was  openly  made  a  dupe.  While 
carving  out  of  the  states  on  the  western  side  of  Germany 
the  Confederation  of  the  Rhine  and  allying  it,  with  its 
sixteen  millions  of  Germans,  to  France,  Napoleon  soothed 
Prussia  by  graciously  giving  her  permission  to  create 
a  Federation  of  North  German  States,  and  to  put  her- 
self at  its  head;  but  when  Prussia  attempted  this  she 
soon  found  delays,  objections,  resistance  on  all  sides,  and 

i  For  a  scathing  summary  of  Haugwitz's  evil  deeds  and  qualities,  see 
Pertz,  Leben  Steins,  vol.  i,  pp.  137,  138;  but  the  bitter  diatribes  of  Ger- 
man and  English  historians  against  the  man  who  played  such  an  impor- 
tant part  in  Prussia's  early  struggle  against  Napoleon  should  be  read 
in  the  light  of  the  statement  made  by  Thiers's  Le  Consulat  et  VEmpire, 
livre  23,  that  the  proposal  to  take  Hanover  was  first  made  by  Napoleon 
and  not  by  Haugwitz.  For  the  good  and  evil  in  Haugwitz,  see  Von  Sy- 
bel's  life  of  him  in  the  Allgemeine  Deutsche  Biographie.  For  a  brief 
statement  of  the  real  responsibility  of  Frederick  William  in  the  light  of 
documents  recently  discovered,  see  Henderson,  Sho?-t  History  of  Germany, 
vol.  ii,  pp.  255,  25G. 


STEIN  251 

ere  long  discovered  that  Napoleon,  while  allowing  her 
to  establish  a  federation,  had  virtually  forbidden  the 
German  states  to  enter  it.  But  a  dupery  even  more  vile 
followed.  Prussia  had  accepted  Hanover,  thus  break- 
ing with  her  natural  ally,  England,  and  uniting  with  her 
natural  enemy,  Napoleon.  She  had  done  so  with  shame. 
Judge  of  the  abyss  of  disgust  into  which  every  thinking 
Prussian  was  plunged,  when,  after  the  treaty  was  fully 
made — after  England  had  punished  Prussia  severely  for 
it  on  the  high  seas;  after  Napoleon,  on  account  of  it, 
had  demanded  from  Prussia  great  concessions  of  terri- 
tory and  enormous  sacrifices  of  national  respect — it  was 
discovered  that  Napoleon  was  secretly  treating  with 
England,  and  offering,  on  sundry  conditions,  to  restore 
Hanover  to  her.  Clearly  there  was  no  longer  honor 
among  thieves. 

To  cap  the  climax  of  degradation,  Napoleon,  in  time 
of  peace,  contemptuously  marched  his  troops  through 
Prussian  territory,  utterly  disregarding  the  simplest 
principles  of  international  law,  and  allowed  his  generals 
to  talk  of  an  approaching  war  with  Prussia. 

There  was  also  talk,  loud  and  loose,  on  the  Prussian 
side.  It  was  reported  that  a  high  official  at  Berlin  had 
openly  declared  that  the  King  had  several  generals,  each 
as  good  as  "M.  de  Buonaparte."  Prussia  now  entered 
secretly  into  arrangements  with  Russia  against  France, 
and  finally,  in  the  autumn  of  1806,  the  Prussian  army 
was  set  in  motion ;  in  a  few  weeks  Napoleon  had  met  it, 
had  beaten  it  utterly  and  easily  at  Jena,  at  Auerstadt,  at 
Saalfeld,  and  the  edifice  erected  by  ages  of  care  and  sac- 
rifice— from  the  old  Electors  of  Brandenburg  to  the 
death  of  Frederick  the  Great — was  beneath  the  conquer- 
or's feet. 

Napoleon  now  rises  from  glory  to  glory ;  enters  Berlin 
amid  the  applause  of  its  citizens,  and  from  the  old  palace 


252  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

of  the  Prussian  king  dictates  the  hardest  of  conditions ; 
then  presses  on  toward  Russia,  holds  his  own  at  the  fear- 
ful struggle  of  Eylau,  wins  the  great  victory  of  Fried- 
land,  and,  having  thus  triumphed  completely  over  Russia 
and  Prussia,  meets  the  Russian  emperor  in  the  summer 
of  1807  on  the  Niemen  raft  and  makes  the  renowned 
Treaty  of  Tilsit.  By  this  the  two  emperors  became  ac- 
complices in  a  scheme,  more  or  less  definite,  for  subju- 
gating Great  Britain  and  the  European  continent,  thus 
depriving  Prussia  of  her  former  devoted  ally,  the  Rus- 
sian emperor,  and  leaving  Napoleon  free  to  deal  with  her 
as  he  would — to  reduce  her  one-half  in  territory  and 
population,  to  take  away  her  most  necessary  fortresses, 
to  quarter  a  vast  army  upon  her,  and  to  use  her  army, 
her  territory,  her  finances  as  his  own.  Frederick  Wil- 
liam III  now  became  a  sort  of  discredited  hermit  prince 
in  the  remote  northeast  corner  of  his  kingdom — a  king- 
dom reduced  from  five  thousand  German  square  miles  to 
a  little  over  two  thousand,  and  from  about  ten  millions 
of  inhabitants  to  about  six  millions,  and  with  prospects 
of  even  more  serious  reductions. 

Worse  than  these  reductions  was  the  manner  of  them. 
Poland  was  taken  from  the  conquered  kingdom,  thus  mak- 
ing Prussia  defenseless  on  the  east;  everything  between 
the  Elbe  and  the  Rhine  was  taken  from  her,  and  thus  she 
became  defenseless  on  the  west;  the  most  important 
fortresses  upon  her  other  frontiers  were  filled  with 
French  troops,  so  that  finally  she  was  left  defenseless  on 
all  sides.  Thus  the  Prussian  realm  lay  shattered,  im- 
poverished, open  at  any  time  to  the  armies  of  any  neigh- 
boring states  whom  Napoleon  might  choose  to  set  upon 
it;  indemnities  to  enormous  amounts  were  levied  upon 
the  Prussian  people,  and  enforced  by  every  sort  of  extor- 
tion. There  were  also  petty  frauds  especially  exasperat- 
ing.    Typical  is  the  fact  that  the  French  authorities  at 


STEIN  253 

Berlin,  within  a  year  after  their  arrival,  had  struck  de- 
based coin  to  the  amount  of  nearly  three  millions  of 
Prussian  dollars.1 

Hard  upon  all  this  spoliation  followed  galling  insults. 
The  great  triumphal  chariot,  with  its  horses  and  Winged 
Victory  of  bronze,  the  main  ornament  of  Berlin,  was 
taken  from  the  Brandenburg  Gate  and  sent  to  Paris. 
The  ingenuity  of  Napoleon  in  degrading  the  Prussian 
king  and  people  before  Europe  was  only  equaled  by  its 
folly.  He  dragged  the  Prussian  Queen  Louise  into  his 
bulletins  and  letters ;  hinted  at  vileness  in  her  character ; 
set  afloat  monstrous  calumnies  regarding  her  and  when 
he  met  her  was  brutal — her  only  offense  being  a  pa- 
triotic devotion  to  Prussia.  She  seems  to  have  had  an 
artistic  side  which  afterward  reappeared  in  her  eldest 
son,  the  next  king,  Frederick  William  IV;  but  she  also 
had  that  sense  of  duty,  steadfastness,  and  devotion  to 
country  which  was  destined  to  develop  so  beneficially  in 
her  second  son,  then  a  child  at  Konigsberg,  later  the  con- 
queror of  France  and  ruler  of  restored  Germany — the 
Emperor  William  I. 

Napoleon  was  fond,  at  times,  of  cruelty  to  women. 
Next  to  his  colossal,  ingenious,  and  persistent  lying,  this 
was  perhaps  the  worst  trait  in  his  character;  and,  as 
regarded  Queen  Louise,  he  gave  this  characteristic  full 
play ;  she  at  last  died  broken-hearted,  and  was  thereupon 
made  a  sort  of  tutelar  saint  by  the  Prussian  people. 
Her  statues  and  portraits  have  become  objects  of  pop- 
ular worship;  the  peasants  of  Prussia  have  given  her, 
from  that  day  to  this,  much  the  same  place  in  their 
hearts  which  the  same  class  in  another  part  of  Germany 
gave  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  St.  Elizabeth;  more  than 
once  remembrance  of  the  wrong  done  the  martyred 
Queen  has  moved  myriads  of  German  households  to  pour 

1  See  Pertz,  Leben  Stein's,  vol.  ii,  p.  110. 


254  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

forth  stalwart  peasant  soldiers  to  take  vengeance  upon 
France.1 

But  there  was  a  still  deeper  humiliation.  Upon  enter- 
ing the  Prussian  capital  in  triumph,  as  on  entering  other 
towns,  Napoleon  was  received  by  the  assembled  crowds 
with  applause:  German  misgovernment  had,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, rooted  out  patriotism. 

Yet  from  the  darkness  of  the  time  light  began  to  ap- 
pear. The  hard  rule  of  Frederick  the  Great  had  not 
lasted  long  enough  to  crush  out  all  manly  vigor ;  the  sen- 
sualism of  Frederick  William  the  Fat  had  not  lasted  long 
enough  to  destroy  all  morality ;  men  who  had  been  known 
hitherto  only  as  routine  officials  now  began  to  show  the 
characteristics  of  statesmen;  men  who  had  been  known 
simply  as  martinets  now  began  to  show  military  genius ; 
in  this  terrible  emergency  genius  and  talent  and  a  deep 
feeling  of  duty  began  to  appear  in  every  quarter,  but 
above  all  in  Prussia.  A  galaxy  of  great  men  arose  who 
remind  an  American  of  the  "war  governors" — the  great 
soldiers,  the  strong  counselors,  who,  during  our  Civil 
War,  arose  in  our  own  country  from  what  had  seemed  to 
be  a  great  foul  mass  of  politicians  hopelessly  corrupted 
by  subservience  to  slavery. 

Foremost  of  all  these  great  Germans  in  that  fearful 
crisis  was  Henry  Frederick  Charles,  Baron  vom  Stein. 
Born  in  1757,  near  the  old  castle  where  his  ancestors  had 
lived  as  barons  of  the  empire — the  Castle  of  Stein,  on  the 
river  Lahn,  above  Ems,  in  Nassau — he  was  the  youngest 
but  one  of  ten  children.  His  family,  having  lived  on  the 
rock  from  which  they  took  their  name  for  seven  hundred 
years — until  it  was  laid  waste  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War 

i  For  the  propensity  of  Napoleon  to  lying,  and  even  to  forgery,  see 
examples  in  Lanfrey,  Histoire  de  Napoldon.  There  is  a  quiet  but  weighty 
reference  to  his  persistence  in  this  habit  of  lying,  even  until  his  death,  in 
Emerson's  Representative  Men. 


STEIN  255 

— had  then  built  a  house  in  the  little  village  below,  and 
there  their  representatives  live  to  this  day.  Under  the 
old  ''Holy  Eoman  Empire  of  the  German  Nation,"  they 
ruled  over  two  villages  near  them,  with  various  attributes 
of  sovereignty.  Most  of  Stein's  brothers  showed  talent, 
but  he  was  early  recognized  as  possessing  both  character 
and  genius,  and  so,  by  a  family  compact,  he  became  the 
representative  of  the  family  name — the  family  head. 
He  was  well  brought  up.  After  the  old  German  fashion, 
he  was  taught  to  speak  the  truth,  and  was  especially 
made  to  understand  that  his  position  not  only  gave  rights, 
but  imposed  duties.  The  ability  of  the  rest  of  the  family 
seems  to  have  been  often  alloyed  with  something  of  wild- 
ness  or  sensuality,  but  the  Stein  continued  a  steady  course 
— manly,  stainless,  independent,  self-controlled,  straight- 
forward, energetic — a  power  to  be  reckoned  with. 

The  study  which  he  most  enjoyed  was  history — ancient 
and  modern,  and  especially  English  history.  From  1773 
to  1777  he  studied  at  the  University  of  Gottingen,  in  the 
department  of  jurisprudence ;  but  for  this  he  made  prepa- 
ration, not  by  scraps  of  metaphysics  or  by  mere  dalliance 
with  literature,  but  by  thorough  work  in  constitutional 
law  and  history — chiefly  in  the  law  and  history  of  his  own 
country  and  of  England.  He  revered  great  men,  above 
all  Charlemagne  and  Luther.  His  classical  scholarship 
was  passable,  but  his  knowledge  of  French  and  English 
he  made  thorough  and  practical.  Uniting  to  his  historical 
reading  close  study  of  political  economy,  social  science, 
statistics,  and  the  like,  he  was  deeply  impressed  by  the 
study  of  Adam  Smith's  new  work,  The  Wealth  of  Nations, 
and,  as  we  note  this  and  its  result  in  the  reforms  which 
Stein  instituted  in  Prussia,  we  gain  new  light  on  the  con- 
tention of  Burke  and  Buckle  that  Adam  Smith's  book  was 
the  greatest  benefaction  ever  given  the  world  by  any 
man. 


256  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

After  remaining  in  Gottingen  for  four  years,  lie  trav- 
eled extensively  through  Germany,  not  merely  for  pleas- 
ure, but  to  study  men  and  realities.  For  a  considerable 
time  he  settled  down  at  Ratisbon,  in  order  to  learn  the 
manner  of  doing  legislative  business  in  the  Imperial  Diet ; 
at  Wetzlar,  in  order  to  know  the  mode  of  doing  judicial 
business  in  the  chief  imperial  courts;  and  at  Vienna,  in 
order  to  understand  executive  methods  at  the  centre  of 
the  Empire.  All  this  actual  contact  with  life  prevented 
his  becoming  pedantic — a  man  of  mere  formulas ;  during 
all  this  period  he  kept  his  eyes  open  to  realities  which  a 
man  who  hoped  to  be  of  service  to  his  country  ought  to 
know.  He  also  went  outside  his  country;  visited  Hun- 
gary, Styria,  and  finally  England,  looking  closely  into 
mining  and  manufactures — everywhere  studying  the 
sources  of  national  strength. 

It  had  been  understood  from  the  first  that  he  was  to 
take  office  in  some  one  of  the  German  states,  as  men  of 
his  standing  with  small  means  and  large  ambitions 
usually  did.  Many  places  were  open  to  him.  In  almost 
any  of  the  petty  states  under  the  Empire,  each  with  its 
own  civil  service  demanding  men  of  ability,  there  seemed 
some  chance  for  him.  His  ancestral  allegiance  was  to  the 
house  of  Austria ;  but  he  knew  its  past  well  enough  and 
could  look  far  enough  into  its  future  to  see  that  there 
was  no  hope  for  Germany  from  that  source,  and  so,  delib- 
erately breaking  away  from  his  family  traditions  and 
from  South  German  prejudices  against  North  German 
methods  and  manners,  he  chose  the  service  of  Frederick 
the  Great  and  Prussia.  Deepest  in  his  thoughts  was  a 
desire  for  German  unity;  he  saw  that  this  unity  might 
be  accomplished  under  Prussia,  and  it  was  this  feeling 
that  caused  him  to  go  to  Berlin,  where,  in  1780,  he  be- 
came an  under  official  in  that  branch  of  the  administration 
which  had  to  do  with  mining — more  especially,  in  West- 
phalia.    His  duty  was  to  inspect  the  mines,  to  study  and 


STEIN  257 

report  upon  the  best  means  of  production,  and  he  at 
once  went  at  this  duty  in  a  manner  most  thorough ;  made 
new  studies  in  chemistry,  mineralogy,  and  metallurgy, 
with  the  best  professors,  but  prevented  such  studies  from 
becoming  pedantic  by  close  observation  of  actual  condi- 
tions and  processes.  His  promotion  was  rapid,  and  in 
1784  he  was  made  director  in  the  administration  of  the 
mines  and  manufactures  of  Westphalia — from  that  day 
to  this  one  of  the  leading  mining  and  manufacturing  dis- 
tricts of  Europe. 

He  now  showed  great  vigor.  The  Westphalian  func- 
tionaries in  general  had  become  sleepy;  but  he  pushed 
and  pulled,  to  advance  the  public  interest,  and  his  skill, 
energy,  and  public  spirit  were  at  last  recognized. 

A  year  later  he  was  suddenly  called  to  a  very  different 
field.  Frederick  the  Great,  in  closing  his  renewed  strug- 
gle against  Austria,  wished  to  gain  over  to  his  League 
of  German  Princes  sundry  leading  personages  of  the  old 
Empire — especially  the  Archbishop  Elector  of  Mayence ; 
and,  breaking  away  from  old  traditions,  he  sent  Stein  to 
Mayence  as  his  ambassador.  The  young  man,  unaccus- 
tomed though  he  was  to  this  sort  of  work,  cut  through 
the  tangled  mass  of  petty  lying  and  cheatery  which  had 
so  long  existed  there  in  such  matters,  impressed  the 
Archbishop  by  his  honesty,  and  gained  his  points  by  his 
common  sense.  This,  for  so  young  a  man,  was  counted 
a  great  victory.1 

But  he  had  accepted  this  diplomatic  position  with  the 
greatest  reluctance — indeed,  had  at  first  utterly  refused 
it,  and  was  only  led  to  take  it  by  his  sense  of  loyalty  and 
honor;  and,  now  that  his  duty  was  discharged,  he  deter- 
mined to  have  no  more  of  it.     One  statement  of  his  throws 

i  For  curious  details  regarding  the  difficulties  which  Stein  had  to  sur- 
mount during  this  mission,  see  Pertz,  Leben  Steins,  vol.  i,  pp.  44  et  seq. 
The  courts  of  the  ecclesiastical  Electors  seem  to  have  been  anything  but 
saintly. 


258         SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

a  bright  light  into  his  motives,  for  he  speaks  with  dis- 
like of  the  "  alternation  of  idleness  and  crafty,  calculating 
activity" — a  sentence  in  which  the  whole  diplomacy  of 
that  period  is  perfectly  summarized. 

In  1786,  Frederick  the  Great  having  died,  Frederick 
William  the  Fat  began  his  meddlesome  policy,  and  sought 
to  send  Stein  as  ambassador,  first  to  Holland,  and  then 
to  Russia.  These  positions  were  most  brilliant,  and 
Stein's  career  at  Mayence  seemed  a  promise  of  success: 
all  to  no  purpose;  his  aversion  to  this  kind  of  service 
was  unalterable,  and  he  kept  on  with  his  work  in  West- 
phalia. There  are  many  evidences  that  in  taking  this 
course  he  was  influenced  by  the  example  of  Turgot,  whose 
life  had  shown,  not  only  to  the  province  which  Turgot 
ruled  and  to  France,  but  to  all  Europe,  how  much  greater 
is  constructive  work,  even  provincial,  than  the  sort  of 
service  which  merely  or  mainly  enforces  the  whims  of 
courts  and  cabinets. 

Stein's  duties  in  Westphalia  were  now  rapidly  ex- 
tended, and  he  was  soon  devoting  himself  especially  to 
promoting  manufactures  and  to  opening  communications 
by  land  and  water  on  a  great  scale.  Here  came  an  inno- 
vation as  startling  in  his  day  as,  in  some,  parts  of  our 
country,  in  our  own ;  for  he  did  this  work  in  opening  roads 
of  the  best  construction,  not  by  forcing  peasants  to  con- 
tribute unskilled  labor,  after  the  feudal  fashion,  but  by 
labor  scientifically  directed  and  adequately  rewarded. 
Thus  it  was  that  Stein,  in  1786,  like  Turgot  a  few  years 
before,  arrived  at  the  same  conclusions  and  adopted  the 
same  methods  which  the  state  of  New  York  and  other 
great  commonwealths  of  the  American  Republic  have 
reached,  more  than  a  hundred  years  later. 

He  also  improved  the  internal  tax  system,  and  thus, 
during  twenty  years,  wrought,  not  merely  for  the  Prus- 
sian treasury,  but  for  the  well-being  of  the  people  at 
large. 


STEIN  259 

During  the  first  war  of  Prussia  with  the  French  Re- 
public, which  ended  with  the  Treaty  of  Basle,  he  had 
reason  to  feel  deeply  the  errors  of  Berlin  statesmen,  but 
steadily  attended  to  his  own  business:  more  and  more 
clearly  he  saw  that  by  developing  the  resources  of  the- 
country  he  could  do  more  for  it  than  by  dabbling  in  for- 
eign affairs.  He  constantly  laid  hold  on  new  work, 
extending  important  lines  of  communication,  improving- 
roads  and  waterways,  strengthening  manufactures,  dis- 
missing useless  functionaries,  stopping  peculation;  but,, 
what  was  even  better  than  this,  he  developed  public  in- 
struction, and  began  planning  various  reforms  in  the 
country  at  large,  especially  the  abolition  of  the  caste 
system  and  of  serfdom. 

His  success  led  to  the  imposition  of  more  and  more 
duties  upon  him:  he  was  called  upon  to  superintend  the 
work  of  incorporating  into  Prussia  the  new  acquisitions 
made  under  her  Basle  Treaty  with  the  French  Republic, 
and  especially  to  curb  the  severity  of  underlings  seeking 
to  carry  from  the  capital  into  these  new  territories  the 
stiff,  stern  Prussian  system. 

His  continued  success  led  now  to  the  highest  provincial 
promotion.  In  1796  he  was  made  Supreme  President  of 
the  Provincial  Chambers  and  head  of  the  entire  adminis- 
tration in  "Westphalia.  His  duties  after  this  promotion- 
can  best  be  understood  by  an  American  if  we  imagine  the 
governor  of  one  of  our  greatest  states  called  upon  to 
discharge  duties,  not  only  executive,  but  legislative,  judi- 
cial, and  diplomatic,  and  adding  to  them  various  functions 
of  important  cabinet  officers  at  Washington.  The  sys- 
tem was  undoubtedly  bad,  but  his  genius  made  it  work 
well.  His  strength  rose  with  his  tasks ;  it  was  soon  felt 
that  his  was  a  force  to  be  obeyed,  and  that  behind  it  all 
was  a  determined  zeal,  not  for  pelf  or  place,  but  for  the 
good  of  the  kingdom. 

In  1804  he  was  transferred  to  a  far  greater  sphere. 


260  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

He  was  made  minister  of  state  for  Prussia,  the  depart- 
ments of  finance,  manufactures,  and  trade  being  placed 
in  his  hands — his  career  as  minister  thus  beginning  a  few 
weeks  before  Napoleon's  career  as  Emperor.  In  this 
new  position,  the  feeling  which  inspired  all  his  main 
efforts  was  an  intense  devotion  to  German  unity  under 
the  lead  of  Prussia:  both  he  and  the  French  Emperor, 
whose  most  effective  enemy  in  Germany  he  was  destined 
to  become,  had  the  same  instinct — Napoleon  seeking  to 
prevent  German  unity  by  crushing  Prussia,  Stein  seek- 
ing to  promote  this  unity  by  strengthening  her. 

This  feeling  in  Stein  was  wedded  to  an  idea  then  new 
in  political  economy.  Prussia,  like  the  old  French  mon- 
archy, was  divided  into  provinces,  each,  as  a  rule,  with 
its  own  historic  frontiers  and  its  own  manifold  vexa- 
tions and  discouragements  to  manufactures  and  trade. 
Against  this  system  Turgot  had  fought  the  good  fight 
in  France  and  lost  it.  The  world  now  sees  that  the  sys- 
tem was  absurd,  but  then  it  was  generally  regarded  as 
natural,  and  indeed  essential :  the  government  favored  it 
as  giving  increased  revenue ;  the  people  favored  it  as  giv- 
ing protection  to  their  provincial  industries.  Most  of  its 
absurdities  Stein  swept  away,  and  all  of  them  he  under- 
mined. The  old  complicated  ways  of  collecting  the  rev- 
enues he  made  simple;  despite  most  serious  opposition, 
he  developed  a  new  system  which  proved  not  only  less 
costly  but  more  fruitful,  and  at  the  same  time  he  steadily 
unearthed  frauds,  stopped  abuses,  and  changed  vari- 
ous modes  of  financiering  which  tended  to  scoundrel- 
ism. 

But  the  war  against  Napoleon  was  now  in  sight,  and 
Stein,  as  finance  minister,  was  called  upon  to  furnish 
money  for  it.  In  previous  wars,  Prussia  had  adopted 
the  policy  of  having  a  standing  war  fund,  and  this  sys- 
tem remains  to  this  day ;  so  that  when  she  mobilizes  her 
army  she  can  immediately  have  ready  means  to  tide  over 


STEIN  261 

monetary  disturbance  until  adequate  financial  provision 
is  made.  This  system,  which  in  these  days  is  a  subordi- 
nate convenience,  was  then  a  main  reliance.  It  prevented 
sudden  pressure  upon  the  people.  Prussia  thus,  at  the 
beginning  of  a  war,  made  business  more  easy  by  making 
money  more  plentiful.  But  the  unwisdom  of  Frederick 
William  the  Fat  had  exhausted  all  such  treasure,  and 
more.  Various  projects  were  considered.  Frederick 
the  Great  had  accomplished  much  for  a  time,  though  at 
fearful  ultimate  cost,  by  issuing  debased  coin;  this 
Stein  refused  to  do,  and  expressed  himself  to  the  King 
regarding  his  Majesty's  great  predecessor  in  terms  more 
honest  than  complimentary.  Though  the  decision  was  in 
favor  of  paper  money,  it  was  paper  money  carefully  con- 
trolled; no  "fiat  money,"  such  as  not  long  since  won  such 
wide  support  in  our  own  country,  was  thought  of.  The 
amount  of  currency  was  comparatively  small — smaller, 
indeed,  than  the  King  and  many  of  his  counselors  thought 
permissible ;  but  Stein  utterly  refused  to  go  farther  than 
he  could  go  in  perfect  safety;  the  fool's  paradise  of  paper 
money,  in  which  various  ministers  in  France  had  dis- 
ported themselves,  only  to  be  tormented  by  it  afterward, 
Stein  refused  to  enter. 

The  labor  henceforth  thrown  upon  him  was  overwhelm- 
ing. With  the  most  inadequate  machinery,  he  must  pro- 
vide funds  for  fighting  France ;  but  finance  was  the  small- 
est of  his  cares,  for  he  saw  swift  destruction  coming 
unless  the  system  of  government  was  greatly  changed, 
even  in  some  of  its  foundations. 

Still  influential  in  foreign  policy  was  Haugwitz,  a  poor 
creature  at  best,  and  now  absolutely  dazzled  and  dazed 
by  the  Napoleonic  glory:  him  Stein  opposed  bitterly. 
Close  about  the  king,  standing  between  him  and  the  min- 
isters of  state,  was  a  sort  of  "kitchen  cabinet,"  its  main 
members  being  Lombard,  a  mere  trickster  belonging  to 
the  school  which  had  brought  ruin  upon  France ;  Beyme, 


262  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

a  good  sort  of  man  at  times,  but  wrong-headed ;  Haugwitz, 
and  others  like  him.  On  these  Stein  waged  war  without 
ceasing. 

Studying  the  general  administration,  he  found  a  med- 
ley of  favorites,  ministers,  directors,  commissions, 
boards,  bureaus,  functionaries,  with  all  sorts  of  titles  and 
attributes,  working  largely  at  cross  purposes.  Studying 
the  country  at  large,  he  found  the  population  divided 
into  castes:  nobles,  burghers,  serfs — each  tied  up  by 
every  sort  of  rusty  restriction,  all  prevented  from  using 
their  persons  or  their  property  according  to  their  needs 
or  the  needs  of  their  country.  For  all  this  he  thought 
out  reforms. 

The  battle  of  Jena,  terrible  as  were  its  consequences, 
did  not  shake  his  purpose.  Though  various  other  mag- 
nates hastened  to  declare  allegiance  to  Napoleon,  Stein 
was  uncompromising;  others  gave  up  national  property 
to  the  conqueror  and  took  office  under  him;  but  Stein 
seized  and  sent  everything  possible  beyond  the  conquer- 
or's reach,  refused  to  submit  himself  to  an  enemy  of  his 
country,  and  followed  his  sovereign  into  his  last  refuge — 
the  most  woebegone  corner  of  the  kingdom. 

The  king  now  urged  Stein  to  take  the  Department  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  but  this  he  steadily  declined,  resisting 
all  nattering  promises ;  partly  from  a  belief  that  his  fel- 
low statesman,  Hardenberg,  was  more  fit,  and  partly  from 
an  unwillingness  to  serve  before  the  "kitchen  cabinet" 
had  been  abolished  forever.  After  various  attempts  to 
secure  him,  and  at  the  same  time  to  hold  fast  to  the  old 
system,  his  Majesty  lost  his  temper,  wrote  Stein  a  bitter 
letter,  referred  to  one  of  his  remonstrances  as  a  "bom- 
bastic essay,"  called  him  a  "refractory,  insolent,  and  dis- 
obedient official,  proud  of  his  own  genius  and  talents,  in- 
attentive to  the  good  of  the  state,  guided  purely  by 
caprice,  acting  from  passion,  personal  hatred,  and  ran- 
cor," and  ended  by  saying:     "If  you  are  not  disposed 


STEIN  263 

to  alter  your  disrespectful  and  indecorous  behavior,  the 
state  will  not  be  able  to  reckon  much  upon  your  future 
services." 

At  this,  on  the  3d  of  January,  1807,  the  sturdy  patriot 
resigned  his  place  in  the  cabinet,  returned  to  his  ancestral 
home  in  Nassau,  and  settled  there ;  but  not  in  sloth,  for 
he  at  once  began  drawing  up  plans  for  various  reforms 
which  he  saw  must  come  before  Germany  could  throw 
off  the  tyranny  which  had  settled  down  upon  her  more 
and  more  fearfully  since  the  defeat  of  Austria  at  Auster- 
litz,  of  Prussia  at  Jena,  and  of  Eussia  at  Friedland — 
among  these  plans  being  one  for  a  better  council  of  min- 
isters, which  should  forever  replace  "kitchen  cabinets" 
by  known  and  competent  advisers,  not  only  to  the  king 
but  to  the  country. 

Opportunity  to  carry  out  this  and  other  good  ideas 
came  sooner  than  Stein  had  expected:  Hardenberg, 
driven  from  office  at  the  command  of  Napoleon,  pa- 
triotically besought  the  king  to  make  Stein  his  successor, 
and  to  this  idea  support  came  from  another  quarter  at 
first  sight  surprising — from  Napoleon  himself.  The 
great  conqueror,  planning  to  draw  heavily  upon  Prussian 
finances,  favored  Stein  as  a  man  who  could  develop  them. 
Thus  it  was  that  less  than  ten  months  after  his  igno- 
minious dismissal  Stein  was  requested  by  the  king  to  re- 
sume his  old  place,  and,  in  addition,  to  become  Minister- 
President  of  the  kingdom,  with  full  charge  of  the  civil 
administration,  and  with  great  powers  in  military  and 
foreign  affairs — thus  becoming  a  legislator  for  Prussia, 
with  the  duty  of  meeting  the  terrible  exigencies  of  the 
present  and  of  promoting  a  better  system  for  the  future. 

There  were  then  in  being  two  great  commissions,  with 
which  he  had  long  been  in  touch,  one  on  civil,  the  other 
on  military  matters;  his  ideas  had  taken  possession  of 
their  members,  and  had  wrought  on  them  to  good  pur- 
pose.    Stein  now  became  the  great  man  in  the  first  of 


264  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

these  bodies,  and  in  the  second  he  had  by  his  side  another 
great  man,  his  friend,  General  Scharnhorst. 

When  these  men  now  resumed  their  work,  the  half  of 
the  Prussian  kingdom  which  had  been  left  by  Napoleon 
to  its  former  government  was  a  wreck — its  resources 
mortgaged  to  France,  its  defenders  under  the  command 
of  the  conqueror,  its  people  impoverished  and  benumbed. 
The  spirit  of  Stein  during  this  period  is  best  described 
in  his  own  reminiscences : — 

"We  started,"  he  says,  "from  the  fundamental  idea  of 
rousing  a  moral,  religious,  patriotic  spirit  in  the  nation; 
of  inspiring  it  anew  with  courage,  self-confidence,  readi- 
ness for  every  sacrifice  in  the  cause  of  independence  and 
of  national  honor ;  and  of  seizing  the  first  favorable  op- 
portunity to  begin  the  bloody  and  hazardous  struggle  for 
both." 

His  greatness  in  character,  in  thought,  and  in  work, 
was  recognized  by  his  friends  from  the  beginning.  But, 
as  his  task  grew  upon  him  and  his  plans  unfolded  more 
and  more,  his  brain  was  recognized  throughout  Prussia 
— nay,  throughout  Europe — as  the  real  centre  of  German 
activity  against  the  Napoleonic  tyranny.  Towering  thus 
above  all  contemporary  growths  of  Prussian  statesman- 
ship, he  did  not  seek  to  overshadow  or  wither  them. 
There  have  been  great  statesmen  dissatisfied  until  they 
have  received  all  royal  and  popular  favor :  unhappy  until 
all  their  colleagues  have  drooped  beneath  their  shadow. 
Stein  was  not  of  these :  determined  as  he  always  was,  and 
irritable  as  he  frequently  was,  his  activity  called  into 
being  other  activities,  and  these  he  favored  and  fostered ; 
under  his  influence  other  strong  and  independent  men 
grew  and  strengthened;  and  of  these  were  such  as  Har- 
denberg,  Scharnhorst,  Gneisenau,  and  Schon. 

While  taking  care  of  the  complicated  and  vexatious 
affairs  pressing  upon  him  from  all  sides,  Stein  and  his 
compeers  promoted  a  twofold  revolution.     The  first  was 


STEIN  265 

peaceable,  favoring  the  creation  of  new  institutions  from 
which  might  grow  a  better  spirit  in  the  German  people ; 
the  second  was  warlike,  and,  for  a  considerable  time, 
secret  and  insurrectionary — a  revolution  against  the 
Napoleonic  tyranny,  and  as  truly  an  effort  for  rational 
liberty  as  had  been  the  American  Eevolution,  or,  at  its  be- 
ginning, the  French  Eevolution. 

The  peaceful  revolution  naturally  comes  first  in  our 
thoughts,  for  it  was  the  necessary  preliminary  of  the 
second.  Faithfully  Stein  and  the  great  men  who  stood 
by  him  thought  and  wrought ;  not  spasmodically,  not  by 
orations  to  applauding  galleries,  but  quietly  and  steadily, 
in  the  council  chamber;  and  on  the  9th  of  October,  1807, 
appeared  the  first  of  the  great  edicts  of  emancipation. 
These  had  three  main  purposes — first,  to  abolish  the  serf 
system;  secondly,  to  sweep  away  restrictions  in  buying 
and  selling  land ;  thirdly,  to  prevent  the  great  proprietors 
from  using  their  position  and  capital  to  buy  up  small 
farms,  after  the  English  fashion — thus  rooting  out  the 
yeomanry.  Underlying,  overarching,  and  permeating  all 
these  objects  was  one  great  thought  and  purpose — the  in- 
tent to  create  a  new  people. 

First,  as  to  the  serf  system.  It  was  essentially  the 
same  mass  of  evil  which  had  done  so  much  to  bring  on 
the  revolution  in  France.  De  Tocqueville  has  shown  how 
the  wrongs  which  grew  out  of  outworn  feudalism  had 
separated  the  French  nation  into  distinct  peoples,  hating 
each  other  more  and  more,  and  at  last  ready  to  spring 
at  each  other's  throats.  This  process  had  not  gone  so 
far  in  Germany  as  in  France.  The  French  mind,  with 
its  clearness  and  its  proneness  to  carry  ideas  to  their 
logical  results,  had  moved  faster  and  farther  than  had 
the  thoughts  of  the  lower  classes  in  Germany;  but  the 
German  peasantry,  and  indeed  the  whole  German  peo- 
ple beneath  the  nobility,  had  become  more  and  more  in- 
different to  the  ties  which  guaranteed  national  unity. 


266  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

When  we  read  Arthur  Young's  indignant  accounts  of 
the  French  peasantry  as  he  saw  them  just  on  the  eve  of 
the  Kevolution,  we  naturally  think  that  France,  as  re- 
garded her  rural  population,  had  sunk  to  a  lower  point 
than  had  any  of  her  sister  nations;  but  there  is  ample 
evidence  that  rural  Germany  was  at  that  time  even 
more  wretched  than  rural  France.  Goethe,  who  went 
over  the  French  frontier  with  the  German  army  in  1792, 
tells  us  that  he  found  in  cabins  of  the  French  peasantry 
white  bread  and  wine,  whereas  in  those  of  the  German 
peasantry  he  had  found  only  black  bread  and  no  wine. 
As  to  galling  oppression,  had  Arthur  Young  gone  into 
the  Prussian  dominions,  he  would  doubtless  have  given 
us  pictures  quite  as  harrowing  as  those  he  brought  from 
France.  Take  a  few  of  the  leading  Prussian  provinces. 
In  Brandenburg — largely  an  agricultural  region — out  of 
ninety  thousand  inhabitants,  there  were  hardly  three 
hundred  and  fifty  persons  who  owned  land;  these  held 
sway  in  courts,  churches,  schools,  enjoyed  police  and 
hunting  privileges,  and  down  to  1799  were  mainly  exempt 
from  tolls,  taxes,  and  service  as  soldiers.  About  one- 
sixth  of  the  Brandenburg  peasantry  had,  under  feudal 
tenure,  the  use  of  a  little  land,  but  the  great  body  of 
peasants  were  virtually  day  laborers.  In  Silesia  the 
peasant  was,  as  a  rule,  held  under  strict  serfdom :  com- 
pelled to  remain  on  the  land;  could  only  marry  by  con- 
sent of  his  lord ;  and  his  children  were  obliged  to  remain 
on  the  soil  as  farm  laborers  unless  graciously  permitted 
by  the  lord  of  the  land  to  take  up  some  other  occupation. 
In  the  principality  of  Minden,  at  the  death  of  every  peas- 
ant one-half  of  his  little  movable  property  went  to  his 
lord.  In  Polish  Prussia,  the  serf,  as  a  rule,  could  own 
absolutely  nothing.  He  and  all  that  was  his  belonged 
to  his  lord ;  the  land  owners  had  managed  to  evade  even 
the  simplest  feudal  obligation,  and  could  throw  out  their 
tenants  as  they  chose. 


STEIN  267 

Various  Prussian  rulers  had  striven  to  diminish  the 
pressure  of  all  this  wrong.  Frederick  the  Great,  cynical 
as  he  appeared,  sought  to  mitigate  the  brutalizing  in- 
fluences of  this  debased  feudalism,  and  Frederick  Wil- 
liam III  had  shown  a  wish  to  make  some  beginning  of 
better  things ;  but  the  adverse  influences  were  too  strong. 
Nobles  and  clergy  were  then  in  Protestant  Prussia  what 
they  had  been  in  the  days  of  Turgot  in  Catholic  France, 
and  their  orators  struck  their  keynote  in  declaring  this 
existing  order  of  things  "a  system  ordained  by  God"; 
that  thereby  alone  virtue,  honor,  and  property  could  be 
secured ;  that  to  change  it  was  to  give  up  their  beautiful 
patriarchal  heritage.  Hearing  this  utterance,  one  would 
suppose  that  under  this  system  the  rule  was  kind  treat- 
ment from  the  upper  classes,  and  love  from  the  lower; 
but  the  fact  was  that  while  the  feudal  lord's  idea  of  his 
right  had  become  grossly  magnified  his  idea  of  his  duty 
had  mainly  disappeared ;  the  system  had  become  fearfully 
oppressive  and  was  enveloped  in  a  cloud  of  distrust, 
faultfinding,  and  hate.1 

And  not  only  were  the  people  who  cultivated  the  land 
thus  bound,  but  the  very  soil  itself  was  in  fetters — tied 
up,  as  to  sale  and  cultivation,  by  feudal  restrictions  which 
had  become  absurd.  Under  the  old  system,  the  three 
castes — the  nobility,  the  burghers,  the  peasants — had 
been  carefully  kept  each  to  itself.  The  rule,  resulting 
from  the  theory  underlying  the  whole,  was  that  the  no- 
bility must  not  engage  in  the  occupations  of  the  burgher 
class;  that  burghers  must  be  kept  well  separated  from 
the  peasant  class ;  and  that,  to  this  end,  all  three  classes 
should  be  hampered  by  a  network  of  restrictions  upon 
their  power  to  hold  land.  Barriers  of  various  sorts  had 
been  built  between  these  three  classes.     Broad  tracts  of 

i  For  a  very  clear  detailed  statement  regarding  the  condition  of  the 
Prussian  peasantry,  and  the  German  peasantry  generally,  see  Hausser, 
Deutsche  Geschichte,  vol.  iii,  pp.   123   and  following. 


268  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

land  were  lying  waste  because  their  noble  proprietors 
bad  not  the  capital  with  which  to  till  them,  and  yet  were 
forbidden  to  sell  thern;  great  amounts  of  capital  were 
lying  idle  because  burghers  who  had  accumulated  it  were 
by  the  laws  and  customs  hindered  from  applying  it  to 
land  owned  by  nobles;  trade  was  stagnant  and  multi- 
tudes of  young  nobles  idle  because  they  must  not  engage 
in  trade.  All  this  and  many  kindred  masses  of  evil  were 
now  largely  swept  away,  yet  not  without  opposition; 
political  philosophers  and  declaimers  rilled  the  air  with 
arguments  to  prove  these  reforms  wicked  and  perilous; 
nobles  of  the  court,  high  officers  of  the  army,  and  landed 
proprietors  in  great  numbers  caballed  against  the  re- 
former ;  General  Yorck,  one  of  the  best  and  strongest  men 
of  the  time,  declared  the  new  measures  monstrous ;  but 
Stein  persevered  and  forced  through  the  edict  which, 
three  years  later,  on  St.  Martin's  Day,  1810,  struck  feudal 
fetters  from  two-thirds  of  the  Prussian  people,  and  ex- 
tinguished serfdom  under  Prussian  rule  forever.1 

It  is  only  just  to  say  that  for  this  great  edict  of  1807 
and  for  the  later  legislation  which  supplemented  it — 
transforming  serfs  into  freemen  throughout  Prussia — 
various  colleagues  and  assistants  of  Stein,  and  especially 
Hardenberg,  Altenstein,  and  Schon,  deserve  also  to  be 
forever  held  in  remembrance.  They  too  had  given  long 
and  trying  labor  to  it  all.  They  had  taken  the  better 
thought  of  their  time  and  brought  it  into  effective  form ; 
but  the  credit  of  giving  life  to  what  they  thus  produced, 
of  forcing  their  main  ideas  upon  the  conservatism  of  the 
nation — beginning  with  the  King  himself — belongs,  first 
of  all,  to  Stein.  Others  saw,  as  he  did,  the  causes  of  the 
Prussian  downfall ;  others  contributed  precious  thought  in 
devising  this  great  restoration ;  but  his  was  the  eye  which 
saw  most  clearly  the  goal  which  must  be  reached;  his, 
the  courage  which  withstood  all  threats  and  broke  through 

i  See  Treitschke,  Deutsche  Geschichte,  vol.  i,  p.  281. 


STEIN  269 

all  obstacles;  his,  the  mental  strength  which,  out  of 
vague  beliefs  and  aspirations,  developed  fundamental, 
constitutional  laws ;  his,  the  moral  strength  which,  more 
than  that  of  any  other  German  statesman,  uplifted  three- 
fourths  of  the  whole  population,  gave  them  a  new  inter- 
est in  the  kingdom,  and  a  feeling  for  its  welfare  such  as 
had  never  before  been  known  in  Prussia,  and  thus  did 
most  to  create  that  national  spirit  which  was  destined 
to  sweep  everything  before  it  in  the  Freedom  War  of 
1813,  in  the  War  for  German  Unity  in  1866,  and  in  the 
Franco-Prussian  War  of  1870. 

It  may  be  objected  to  these  claims  for  Stein  that  the 
fundamental  thought  in  his  reforms  was  derived  from 
Adam  Smith.  That  statement  is  true.  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  Adam  Smith,  penetrating  thinker  that  he 
was,  set  in  motion  the  trains  of  thought  which  largely 
resulted  in  Prussian  emancipation;  yet  this  detracts  not 
at  all  from  the  glory  of  Stein  and  the  statesmen  who 
wrought  with  him.  All  the  more  glory  to  them  for  rec- 
ognizing, developing,  and  enforcing  the  great  English- 
man's thought,  in  a  way  which  has  proved  a  blessing  not 
merely  to  Germany,  but  to  humanity.1 

i  For  a  very  full  discussion  of  Adam  Smith's  influence,  see  Roscher  in 
the  Bcrichte  der  Koniglich-Sachsischen  Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschaften, 
1867;  and,  for  a  careful  statement  as  to  the  influence  of  Smith  on  Stein, 
see  pp.  5,  6.  Roscher's  concession  is  all  the  more  convincing  since  he  is 
clearly  inclined  to  minimize  Smith's  influence  on  German  thought  in  gen- 
eral. 


II 

ANOTHER  great  work  now  begun  by  Stein  was  the 
Reform  of  the  City  Governments.  The  en- 
franchisement of  the  serfs  had  been  due,  largely,  to  the 
spirit  of  reform  aroused  in  general  thought  by  Voltaire, 
Rousseau,  and  their  compeers,  and  in  economic  science 
by  Adam  Smith ;  but  this  city  reform  was  peculiarly  his 
own.  The  need  of  it  had  doubtless  been  felt  by  many; 
good  methods  of  promoting  it  had  been  seen  by  few ;  the 
practical  measure  for  carrying  it  into  effect  was  the  work 
of  Stein  alone. 

This  system,  which  has  been  fruitful  in  blessings  ever 
since  his  time,  was  in  principle  somewhat  like  that  of 
England,  but  differed  from  it  widely.  It  was  the  very 
opposite  of  the  system  fastened  upon  France  by  the 
French  Revolution  and  by  Napoleon.  As  Seeley  very 
justly  says:  "The  French  Revolution  began  at  the  top, 
creating  a  central  national  legislature  and  giving  all  the 
power  to  that,  leaving  town  and  local  organizations  gen- 
erally deprived  of  all  life,  making  the  prefects  of  de- 
partments and  the  mayors  of  communities  mere  function- 
aries appointed  from  the  central  government  at  Paris 
and  representing  the  ideas  of  the  capital."  The  reform 
of  Stein  began  at  the  base,  giving  self-government  to  the 
towns,  schooling  them  in  managing  their  own  affairs,  in 
checking  their  own  functionaries,  in  taking  their  own 
responsibilities.  While  keeping  the  central  monarchy 
strong,  his  great  exertion  was  to  restore  fitness  for  pub- 
lic life  in  the  country  at  large :  by  his  first  reform  he  had 
converted  the  rural  serfs  into  beings  who  could  feel  that 
they  had  an  interest  in  the  country;  by  this  new  reform 

270 


STEIN  271 

he  had  sought  to  exercise  the  city  populations  in  public 
affairs. 

The  old  city  system  of  Europe  had,  many  centuries  be- 
fore, been  a  main  agency  in  developing  civilization: 
Guizot  declares  it  the  main  legacy  from  Eome  to  the 
Middle  Ages ;  Maurer  asserts  that  it  saved  the  Reforma- 
tion. The  Roman  Empire  was  made  up  of  cities.  When 
all  else  save  the  Church  was  swept  away  and  the  country 
districts  desolated,  these  cities  remained,  and  in  them 
was  a  continuity  of  much  that  was  best  in  the  old  civiliza- 
tion, and  a  potency  of  vast  good  in  the  new.  During  the 
Middle  Ages  their  vigor  increased.  The  cities  wrested 
from  the  feudal  lords  right  after  right ;  the  city  magnates 
leagued  with  the  distant  emperor  or  king  against  the 
feudal  oppressors  immediately  above  them;  when  the 
feudal  lords  wanted  money  to  join  the  Crusades  the  cities 
brought  it,  and  bought  with  it  rights  and  immunities. 
The  commerce  of  the  Middle  Ages  developed  many  of 
these  towns  nobly,  especially  throughout  Italy  and  Ger- 
many; but,  Vasco  da  Gama's  passage  around  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  having  largely  withdrawn  trade  with  the 
East  Indies  from  the  Mediterranean,  the  commercial 
cities,  not  only  in  Italy  but  even  in  Germany,  lost  for  a 
time  a  very  large  share  of  their  prosperity. 

During  the  Reformation  period,  many  of  the  German 
cities  having  recovered  strength  and  shown  hospitality  to 
the  new  thought,  various  leading  reformers  in  Northern 
and  Middle  Germany  took  refuge  in  them,  and  there 
found  protection  against  Pope  and  Emperor.  In  the 
League  of  Schmalkald,  sturdily  defying  all  efforts  to 
crush  out  civil  and  religious  liberty,  we  find  territorial 
princes  associated  in  a  widespread  confederation  with 
warlike  cities ;  but  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  ruined  many  of  these  city  centres,  and  di- 
minished the  power  of  them  all,  so  that  after  the  Treaty 
of  Westphalia,  in  1648,  the  sway  of  the  princes  was 


272  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

greatly  extended,  and  only  a  few  of  the  greater  cities 
could  withstand  them. 

Especially  did  political  liberty,  that  is,  the  right  of 
citizens  to  take  part  in  public  affairs,  die  out  in  Prussia ; 
the  strong  race  of  the  Hohenzollerns  might  at  times  make 
use  of  local  self-government,  but  as  a  rule  they  overrode 
it,  and  everything  tended  more  and  more  to  centraliza- 
tion, until  finally  the  genius  and  absolute  power  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great  seemed  to  remove  from  men's  minds  the 
last  remaining  ideas  essential  to  city  independence.  The 
individual  citizen  was  comparatively  of  no  account;  he 
became  essentially  a  parasite,  living  upon  a  state  whose 
real  life  was  centred  in  the  brain  of  the  monarch.  As  a 
result  of  all  this,  whatever  authorities  there  were  in  the 
German  towns  wrought  at  cross  purposes:  there  was  a 
medley  of  various  sorts  of  municipalities,  and  in  them 
royal  tax  administrators,  municipal  figureheads,  guilds, 
privileges,  customs,  usages,  exemptions,  ceremonies,  be- 
numbing the  whole  organization,  save  when  some  genius 
like  the  Great  Elector  or  Frederick  the  Great  broke 
through  them.  The  mass  of  dwellers  in  cities  came  more 
and  more  to  consider  public  affairs  as  no  concern  of 
theirs.1 

So  far  had  this  obliteration  of  city  activities  gone  in 
Prussian  towns  that,  although  various  guilds,  corpora- 
tions, and  privileged  persons  were  the  nominal  authori- 
ties, the  paid  offices  were  filled  largely  with  old  invalids 
of  the  army.  And  what,  in  a  general  national  emer- 
gency, was  to  be  expected  from  a  nation  made  up  of  a  city 
class  like  this,  and  of  a  rural  class  like  the  serfs  in  the 
fields?  What  wonder  that  Prussians  seemed  to  look  on 
the  downfall  of  Prussia  and  Germany  with  stupid  in- 

i  For  a  lucid  account  of  the  action  of  the  Great  Elector  and  Frederick  the 
Great  in  at  times  breaking  through  these  city  privileges,  or,  as  they  were 
called,  "rights,"  see  Tuttle,  History  of  Prussia. 


STEIN  273 

difference,  and  applauded  Napoleon  at  the  Brandenburg 
Gate? 

On  this  mass  of  unreason  in  the  city  organizations 
Stein  had  thought  for  years.  Other  patriotic  public 
servants  had  also  thought  upon  it,  and  at  last,  at  Konigs- 
berg,  afar  off  in  the  northeast  corner  of  the  Prussian 
state,  in  this  its  time  of  dire  trouble,  some  of  them  pre- 
pared a  tentative  plan  of  self-government  for  their  own 
city.  This  plan,  largely  under  the  influence  of  Stein, 
soon  grew  into  a  provisional  system  covering  sundry 
neighboring  towns,  and  this,  under  quiet  suggestions  from 
him,  was  finally  sent  to  the  King.  His  Majesty  naturally 
referred  the  whole  matter  back  to  his  great  minister,  who 
now  began  work  upon  it  directly  and  energetically,  and 
developed  out  of  it  a  system  applicable  not  only  to  the 
cities  which  had  asked  for  it,  but  to  all  the  towns  in  the 
Prussian  kingdom.  Thus,  mainly  under  Stein's  hands, 
came  into  being  the  great  statutes  for  municipal  reform. 

By  these  statutes  the  municipal  medley  of  Prussia  was 
swept  away,  and  the  cities  were  divided  into  three 
classes:  " great  towns,"  with  ten  thousand  residents  and 
upward;  "middle  towns,"  with  thirty-five  hundred  resi- 
dents and  upward ; ' '  small  towns, ' '  all  the  others.  Every 
town  now  took  part  in  the  election  of  its  own  authorities, 
and  in  all  towns  of  above  eight  hundred  inhabitants 
there  was  a  division  into  wards,  each  with  its  own  local 
powers. 

As  a  rule,  all  were  recognized  as  burghers  who  owned 
real  estate  or  other  property  which  insured  a  direct, 
tangible  interest  in  the  city;  but  soldiers,  Jews,  Men- 
nonites,  and  criminals  were  excluded.  Magistrates  and 
town  representatives  were,  as  a  rule,  selected  by  the  as- 
sembly of  citizens,  the  number  of  councilors  varying 
from  twenty-four  in  the  smaller  towns  to  a  hundred  in 
the  larger.     Every  elector  must  appear  at  the  polls  and 

18 


274  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

vote,  under  penalty  of  losing  his  citizenship  by  continued 
neglect  of  this  duty.  Two-thirds  of  the  town  councilors 
must  be  resident  householders ;  they  received  no  pay,  and, 
as  to  the  theory  of  their  relations  with  their  constituents, 
it  is  well  worth  noting  that  each  represented,  not  his 
guild,  not  his  ward,  not  any  subordinate  interest,  but  the 
whole  city.  At  the  head  of  the  city  was  a  paid  burgo- 
master, and  about  him  a  small  body  of  councilors,  paid 
and  unpaid;  only  those  officials  being  paid  who  were 
really  obliged  to  devote  themselves  to  their  official  duties 
as  a  profession. 

The  burgomaster  was  elected  by  the  representatives  of 
the  people  and  confirmed  by  an  authority  representing 
the  nation;  but  the  chief  burgomaster  in  sundry  great 
towns  was  selected  by  the  king  out  of  three  named  by  the 
city  representatives.  Various  features  in  the  develop- 
ment of  this  system  are  worthy  of  note.  Take  as  a  con- 
crete example  the  recent  history  of  Berlin.  Whenever 
the  chief  burgomastership  of  that  city,  perhaps  the  best 
governed  city  in  the  world,  has  become  vacant,  those 
elected  and  submitted  to  the  king  for  approval  have 
been  men  who  have  distinguished  themselves  in  the 
administration  of  other  cities,  some  of  these  far  from 
the  capital.  It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  know  two 
of  the  chief  burgomasters  of  Berlin  thus  selected;  both 
were  eminent,  and  one  of  them,  who  became  and  re- 
mained a  very  influential  member  of  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment, especially  so.  The  tenure  of  the  chief  burgomaster 
is  virtually  during  good  behavior,  with  a  good  salary,  a 
suitable  residence,  a  high  position,  and  a  retiring  pen- 
sion— the  man  thus  chosen,  first  by  the  electors  and  finally 
by  the  emperor,  being  expected  to  give  himself  entirely 
to  the  welfare  of  the  city ;  this  is  his  whole  business,  into 
which  he  is  to  put  the  expectations  and  ambitions  of  his 
life.  The  result  of  this  system  is  seen  to-day  in  the 
magnificent  development  of  that  great  capital :  everything 


STEIN  275 

carefully  thought  out;  everything  managed  on  business 
principles ;  and  all  the  affairs  of  the  city  conducted,  with 
the  aid  of  the  burgher  councils,  quietly  and  with  an  effi- 
ciency and  economy  such  as  in  American  cities  is  rarely, 
if  ever,  seen. 

The  official  terms  of  citizen  functionaries  under  the 
legislation  of  Stein  were  generally  long,  varying  from 
six  years  to  twelve,  the  rule  being  continuance  in  office 
during  good  behavior.  Generally  speaking,  every  citizen 
was  liable  to  serve  in  unpaid  offices  for  six  years,  though 
he  might,  for  sufficient  reason,  secure  permission  to  re- 
tire after  a  service  of  three  years.  State  officials,  eccle- 
siastics, university  professors,  schoolmasters,  and  prac- 
ticing physicians  were  largely  excused  from  active  state 
duties ;  but  any  other  citizens  refusing  to  serve  might  be 
punished  by  loss  of  citizenship  and  by  fine. 

On  the  19th  of  November,  1808,  Stein's  plan  became 
a  law.  One  feature  in  it  which  strikes  us  in  these  days 
as  absurd,  and  which  has  in  the  main  disappeared,  is 
that  by  which  Jews,  Mennonites,  and  soldiers  were  classed 
with  criminals  as  unfit  for  citizenship;  but  there  is  an- 
other feature  which,  while  it  may  seem  surprising,  is  well 
worth  close  study,  especially  by  any  one  taking  an  inter- 
est in  American  politics. 

To  be  a  burgher  in  Prussia,  one  must,  as  a  rule,  have  a 
definite  and  tangible  interest  in  the  community.  Here 
was  a  principle  running  through  the  whole  theory  and 
practice  of  city  government  in  Europe,  ancient,  mediaeval, 
and  modern :  a  city  was  considered  a  corporation, — a  cor- 
poration which  had  business  to  conduct  and  property  to 
administer.  This  theory  is  widespread  among  civilized 
nations  to-day:  a  distinction  being  made  between  what 
may  be  called  the  civil  right  to  enjoy  protection  in  the 
natural  rights  of  man  and  the  political  right  to  take  part 
in  general  public  affairs,  on  one  side,  and,  on  the  other, 
what  may  be  called  municipal  right, — the  right  to  take 


276  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

active  part  in  administering  city  property  and  determin- 
ing city  policy.  As  to  the  latter  right,  it  was  gener- 
ally felt  that  the  people  exercising  it  should  have  some 
evident  " stake"  in  the  corporation  whose  affairs  they 
were  called  upon  to  control  or  administer.  We  in  Amer- 
ica have  tried  the  opposite  system  fully.  We  have  ap- 
plied universal  suffrage  to  the  whole  administration  of 
our  city  corporations,  and  the  result,  in  most  of  our  cities, 
has  been  not  merely  disheartening,  but  debasing.  Least 
of  all  can  we  be  satisfied  with  its  results  in  our  large 
seaport  towns,  with  their  great  influx  of  people  whose 
whole  life  has  unfitted  them  to  exercise  public  duties, 
and  who  have  had  no  training  or  even  experience  of  a 
kind  calculated  to  fit  them.  The  distinction  recognized 
in  Stein's  system,  between  the  proletariat  and  men  hav- 
ing a  direct  tangible  interest  in  the  town,  has  deep  roots 
in  human  history;  and  a  better  system  than  that  which 
now  exists  in  the  majority  of  our  American  cities  seems 
never  likely  to  come  in  until  some  account  is  taken  of 
this  distinction,  founded  in  the  history  of  liberty-loving 
peoples  and  based  on  an  idea  of  justice:  the  idea  that, 
while  civil  liberty,  which  implies  protection  in  natural 
rights,  must  be  guaranteed  to  every  citizen,  and  political 
liberty,  the  right  to  take  part  in  the  general  political 
government,  shall  be  as  widely  diffused  as  possible, 
municipal  liberty,  the  right  to  exercise  some  effective 
initiative  and  control  in  municipal  affairs,  which  are 
principally  practical  business  affairs,  shall  be  reserved 
for  those  who  have  won  a  direct,  tangible  interest  or 
valuable  experience  in  such  affairs.  A  perfectly  just 
and  even  liberal  compromise  between  political  and  civil 
liberties  on  one  hand  and  municipal  liberties  on  the 
other  would  seem  to  be  given  by  a  fundamental  law 
requiring  in  all  our  cities  above  a  certain  size  that  a 
mayor  and  board  of  aldermen,  each  of  them  represent- 
ing the  whole  city,  be  chosen  by  universal  suffrage,  but 


STEIN  277 

that  a  board  of  control,  whose  affirmative  vote  shall  be 
necessary  in  all  financial  appropriations,  all  questions 
relating  to  the  management  of  public  property,  and  all 
grants  of  franchises,  be  elected  by  the  direct  taxpayers. 

The  system  proposed  by  Stein  was  met  as  we  should 
expect.  The  nobles  and  the  old  school  of  officials  de- 
nounced it  as  radical,  and  even  as  savoring  of  Jacobin- 
ism. Moreover,  there  was  considerable  disappointment 
in  its  first  workings.  People  of  the  towns  showed  at  first 
no  desire  to  go  into  it;  they  had  become  listless  and  in- 
different, and  preferred  to  go  on  in  the  old  way;  the 
new  system,  also,  at  first  increased  expenditure.  But 
Stein  carried  it  through,  and,  as  time  went  on,  it  began 
to  produce  the  effects  which  he  had  expected:  the  town 
populations  began  to  take  an  interest  in  national  affairs ; 
began  to  think  upon  them;  began,  a  generation  later,  to 
take  efficient  part  in  a  Prussian  parliament ;  and,  a  gen- 
eration later  still,  in  a  parliament  of  the  German  Empire. 
The  municipal  system  of  Prussia  and  of  Germany  has, 
indeed,  been  largely  developed  to  meet  new  needs  since 
Stein's  time;  but  its  cornerstone,  then  as  now,  is  the  right 
of  the  people  to  think  and  act  upon  their  own  local 
interests. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that,  while  this  idea  was  thus  tak- 
ing shape  in  reformatory  statutes  thought  out  by  the 
great  German  statesman,  one  of  the  greatest  of  Amer- 
ican statesmen  was  dwelling  upon  it  and  urging  it  in  our 
own  country.  For  it  had  deeply  impressed  Thomas 
Jefferson.  In  his  latter  days  he  often  dwelt  upon  the 
popular  vigor  of  New  England  in  dealing  with  questions 
internal  and  external  as  compared  with  the  apparent 
indifference  of  the  Southern  States,  and  he  attributed 
this  vigor  to  the  New  England  town  meetings,  declaring 
that  in  the  struggle  between  Democrats  and  Federalists 
he  had  felt  the  ground  shake  beneath  his  feet  when  the 
town  meetings  of  New  England  had  opposed  him,  and 


278  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

that  the  county  assemblies  of  Virginia  gave  no  compen- 
sating strength.1 

It  has  been  urged  that  a  part  always  large  and  some- 
times controlling  in  the  great  reforms  which  began  the 
regeneration  of  Prussia  and,  indeed,  of  Germany,  was 
taken  by  Stein's  sometime  friend,  sometime  enemy,  Har- 
denberg.  This  is  certainly  true:  Hardenberg,  with  his 
longer  service  and  his  diplomatic  nature,  had  opportuni- 
ties which  Stein,  with  his  uncompromising  zeal,  had  not. 
"While  Hardenberg  had,  perhaps,  a  stronger  belief  in 
freedom  of  trade  and  manufactures,  it  was  Stein's  en- 
ergy, fearlessness,  and  skill,  and,  above  all,  the  weight 
of  his  character,  which  embodied  the  fundamental  re- 
forms in  laws  and  forced  them  upon  an  unwilling  sover- 
eign and  an  apathetic  people. 

While  pressing  forward  these  great  reforms  needed  to 
start  Prussia  upon  a  better  career,  Stein  dealt  no  less 
thoughtfully  with  a  vast  multitude  of  petty  abuses. 
These  were  largely  feudal  survivals,  of  the  sort  which 
had  driven  the  French  peasantry  mad  twenty  years  be- 
fore; but  instead  of  proceeding  against  them  with  fire 
and  sword,  after  the  Celtic  manner,  he  studied  each  care- 
fully and  dealt  with  it  rationally.  There  was  no  wild 
plunge  into  chaos  and  night,  but  each  evil  survival  was 
dealt  with  upon  its  demerits.2 

But  Stein  and  his  compeers  saw  that  something  vastly 
more  general  and  powerful  was  needed  than  reforms  in 
detail,  and  hence  it  was  that  there  now  began  a  better 
era  in  Prussian,  and  indeed  in  German  education.     Into 

1  See,  especially,  Jefferson's  reference  to  this  in  a  letter  to  John  Adams, 
in  his  later  correspondence.  For  a  clear  and  thorough  account  of  city 
government  and  administration  in  Prussia  and  in  Germany  generally,  see 
Albert  Shaw,  Municipal  Government  in  Continental  Europe,  chap,  v; 
also,  W.  B.  Munro,  The  Government  of  European  Cities,  chap,  ii,  one  or 
both  of  which  works  every  thoughtful  dweller  in  an  American  city  should 
read. 

2  For  the  remedies  administered  to  a  large  number  of  these  abuses,  see 
Pertz,  as  above,  vol.  ii,  pp.  142  and  following. 


STEIN  279 

the  whole  system  of  national  instruction  a  new  spirit  now 
entered;  slowly,  at  first,  but  doubtless  all  the  more 
powerfully.  Occupied  though  Stein  was  in  a  different 
field,  one  feels  his  influence  in  all  this  movement.  In  the 
great  spoliation  by  Napoleon  at  Tilsit,  the  old  Prussian 
University  of  Halle,  founded  a  hundred  years  before  by 
Thomasius,  which  had  given  so  many  strong  men  to  the 
Prussian  state,  was  lost.  But  this  calamity  was  the  har- 
binger of  a  great  gain.  Thoughtful  men  began  to  plan 
a  university  for  Berlin.  Strong  men  began  to  be  secured 
for  its  professorships.  The  rule  that  a  university  is 
made,  not  by  bricks  and  mortar,  but  by  teachers,  was 
fully  recognized.  Stein  had,  indeed,  the  instinct,  so 
strong  in  America,  against  sending  undergraduates  into 
large  cities  for  their  education;  but  he  recognized  the 
importance  of  a  new  educational  centre  to  send  fresh  and 
vigorous  life  through  the  renewed  educational  system, 
and  his  activity  did  much  to  inspire  this  great  movement, 
which  was  destined  to  work  miracles,  not  only  through- 
out Prussia,  but  throughout  Europe.1 

It  will  presently  be  seen  that  to  carry  out  all  these 
great  reformatory  efforts  Stein  had  but  little  more  than 
a  year  in  office.  Could  he  have  had  more  time,  he  would 
doubtless  have  created  a  national  parliament.  But,  as 
we  shall  see,  fate  was  against  him;  the  struggle  with 
Napoleon  and  the  reaction  after  the  Napoleonic  downfall 
caused  the  creation  of  representative  bodies  to  be  long 
deferred.  Still,  when  at  last  they  were  created,  they 
had  a  basis  of  political  experience  for  which  they  were 
mainly  indebted  to  him.     It  has  been  my  fortune  to  be 

i  For  a  very  thoughtful  comparison  of  the  merits  of  Stein  and  Harden- 
berg,  see  Zorn,  Im  Neuen  Reich,  pp.  216  and  following.  For  Stein's  rela- 
tions to  the  educational  movement  in  Prussia,  see  Pertz,  vol.  ii,  pp.  162 
and  following;  also  Kuno  Francke,  Social  Forces  in  German  Literature. 
For  probably  the  best  that  has  ever  been  written  regarding  the  relations 
of  university  life  to  patriotism,  see  Paulsen,  Die  Deutschen  Universitaten> 
bk.  iv. 


280  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

present  during  discussions  in  the  principal  parliaments 
now  existing:  the  British,  the  French,  the  Italian,  the 
German,  as  well  as  our  own ;  and  as  regards  quiet,  thor- 
ough, sober  discussion,  free  from  the  trickery  of  par- 
tisans and  the  oratory  of  demagogues,  the  parliaments 
of  the  Prussian  kingdom  and  of  the  German  empire  have 
seemed  to  me  among  the  very  foremost.  My  belief  is  that 
they  have  before  them  a  great  future,  and  all  the  more 
so  because  their  roots  draw  vigorous  life  from  principles 
of  self-government  which  were  called  into  action  by  Stein. 

While  laying  foundations  for  a  better  civic  system, 
Stein  was  obliged  to  give  immediate  and  intense  thought 
to  the  military  system.  The  old  Prussian  army  organ- 
ization had  been,  under  Frederick  the  Great,  the  wonder 
of  the  world;  and  its  supremacy  had  become  a  tenet  of 
military  orthodoxy  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  but 
above  all  in  Prussia.  In  spite  of  the  revelation  of  power 
given  to  an  army  by  national  feeling  and  by  the  awakened 
consciousness  of  personal  rights,  as  seen  in  the  French 
Revolution, — in  spite  of  the  new  light  and  life  thrown 
into  military  science  and  practice  by  Napoleon, — the  lead- 
ers in  Prussia  clung  to  the  old  system,  boasted  of  it,  and 
threatened  to  overwhelm  Napoleon  with  it. 

But  things  had  changed  since  the  great  Frederick  con- 
quered Soubise  at  Rossbach.  The  French  soldiers  of  the 
new  revolutionary  epoch,  feeling  themselves  citizens  of  a 
great  republic  and  apostles  of  human  rights,  were  very 
different  from  the  poor  creatures  of  the  previous  cen- 
tury, who  had  been  sent  out  to  die  in  battles  demanded 
by  the  intrigues  of  Louvois  or  the  whims  of  Madame  de 
Pompadour;  the  French  marshals,  trained  in  the  cam- 
paigns of  the  republic  and  empire,  were  very  different 
from  poor  Soubise ;  the  commands  of  Napoleon  were  dif- 
ferent indeed  from  orders  issued  by  Louis  XV. 

All  this  had  passed  unheeded  in  Germany,  and  the 
whole  Prussian  military  fabric,  which  it  had  taken  nearly 


STEIN  231 

two  centuries  to  build,  collapsed  at  Jena.  The  fact  was 
that,  judged  by  any  good  modern  standard,  the  old  Prus- 
sian military  system  had  become  vicious.  The  fatal 
weakness  of  absolutism  was  shown  in  it  no  less  than 
throughout  the  civil  administration:  a  genius  like  Fred- 
erick the  Great  could  do  wonders  with  it,  but  the  men  who 
succeeded  him  were  powerless  to  use  it  to  any  good 
purpose. 

The  officers  were  chosen,  with  rare  exceptions,  from  the 
nobility;  military  talent  and  ambition  in  the  rest  of  the 
nation  were  virtually  excluded;  promotion  went  by  sen- 
iority or  favor;  birth  went  before  merit;  the  better  class 
of  officers  were  thwarted  by  pedantry ;  the  ordinary  class 
were  ignorant;  the  soldiers  were  either  peasants'  sons, 
torn  from  their  homes,  or  the  scum  of  continental  cities, 
huddled  together  by  recruiting  officers;  the  soldier's  ca- 
reer was  hopeless, — the  usual  term  of  service  twenty 
years,  and  no  promotion  above  the  ranks.  Degrading 
punishments  were  in  constant  use;  blows  with  a  stick 
could  be  inflicted  on  any  veteran  at  the  whim  of  a  petty 
lieutenant,  and  for  such  offenses  as  a  misplaced  strap  or 
broken  button. 

The  whole  formed  an  organized  system  of  injustice 
which  touched  the  vast  majority  in  their  dearest  inter- 
ests. This  injustice  in  the  time  of  Frederick  the  Great 
was  of  little  account;  his  people  regarded  it  as  the  inevi- 
table and  natural  condition  of  things ;  but  ideas  of  right 
were  now  in  the  air,  and  had  even  reached  the  cottages 
of  German  boors.  The  peasant  class,  which  paid  the 
bulk  of  the  taxes,  paid  also  the  main  tribute  of  blood;  the 
middle  class,  which  also  bore  heavy  burdens,  was  ex- 
cluded from  all  military  honors ;  the  least  honor  was  to 
those  who  labored  most,  the  most  to  those  who  labored 
least.  Old  exemptions  of  districts,  towns,  and  persons — 
exemptions  which  once  had  some  reason,  but  now  had 
none — only  added  to  the  general  sense  of  injustice.     And 


282  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

substitution  was  allowed:  the  rich  man's  son  could  buy 
exemption;  the  poor  man's  son  could  not  escape.  The 
great  mass  of  antiquated  peculiarities  in  army  organiza- 
tion were  retained  as  sacred, — the  stiffness,  the  martinet- 
ism,  the  brutality;  the  only  wonder  is  that  soldiers  so 
treated  and  trained  did  not  come  to  regard  their  country 
as  their  worst  enemy. 

The  first  feeling  after  Jena  was  that  somebody  had 
blundered,  but  it  was  soon  clear  that  everybody  had  blun- 
dered. Scapegoats  were  of  course  sought,  and  they 
were  near  and  plenty ;  the  first  step  universally  demanded 
was  vengeance  upon  indifferent,  incompetent,  beery, 
sleepy,  cowardly  officers,  who  had  delivered  up  important 
commands,  fortresses,  towns — sometimes  without  strik- 
ing a  blow.  Many  were  disgraced ;  some  sentenced  to  im- 
prisonment and  death;  but  thinking  men  soon  saw  that 
the  fault  lay  deeper,  and  among  those  who  searched  into 
the  causes  of  the  catastrophe  most  deeply  was  Stein.  It 
was  this  search  which  led  him  to  propose  the  measures 
calculated  to  develop  a  people  no  longer  to  be  treated  as 
"dumb,  driven  cattle." 

The  immediate  need  was  for  military  reform :  the  whole 
military  system  must  be  recast,  and  at  once.  For  this, 
Stein  had  the  best  ally  possible — General  Scharnhorst; 
and  about  Scharnhorst  stood  a  body  of  exceedingly  able 
and  patriotic  men,  like  Gneisenau,  Boyen,  and  Grolinann. 

Scharnhorst  seemed  to  have  stepped  into  those  worst 
days  of  Germany  out  of  the  best  days  of  Rome ;  he  was  a 
divine  gift,  like  Carnot  in  the  dire  trouble  of  France,  like 
Lincoln,  Stanton,  Grant,  and  Sherman  to  the  North,  or 
like  Lee  to  the  South,  in  the  dark  days  of  our  own  Civil 
War.  He  was  broad  in  views,  simple  in  tastes,  quick  in 
discerning  essentials,  firm,  incorruptible,  and,  above 
everything,  devoted  to  his  country.  By  the  general  body 
of  officers  about  him  he  was  looked  down  upon,  for  he 


STEIN  283 

was  one  of  the  few  Prussian  officers  of  peasant  descent. 
More  than  this,  he  was  considered  a  theorist,  his  real 
worth  being  known  to  few, — but  among  these  few  was 
Stein. 

Into  his  plans  for  military  regeneration  Scharnhorst 
threw  not  only  his  mind,  but  his  heart  and  soul.  Plan 
after  plan  he  carefully  elaborated  and  discussed : — plans 
for  reconstructing  the  army,  for  providing  a  reserve,  for 
developing  a  militia ;  all  this  in  the  face  of  enormous  diffi- 
culties,— the  indecision  of  the  King,  the  suspicion  of 
Napoleon,  the  poverty  of  the  country,  and  the  inertia  of 
influential  people  wedded  to  the  old  system  by  self-inter- 
est or  dread  of  change. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  Scharnhorst 's  whole  system 
was  that  every  citizen  is  bound  to  defend  the  state ;  that 
there  should  be  few  exemptions  and  no  substitutes ;  that 
the  state  has  a  claim  on  all  the  talent  within  its  borders. 
From  this  followed  the  duty  of  all  young  men  to  bear 
arms;  the  advancement  of  officers  and  soldiers  not 
through  influence,  but  by  enterprise,  bravery,  and  char- 
acter. The  recruiting  of  soldiers  abroad  was  given  up : 
only  on  rare  occasions  was  a  foreigner  admitted  to  serv- 
ice in  the  army.  The  plan  of  Scharnhorst  and  Stein  was 
that  the  army  should  be  a  school  for  the  whole  nation, — 
a  school  in  the  virtues  of  soldier  and  citizen.  The  germs 
of  the  whole  military  system  as  it  exists  to-day,  with  its 
active  service,  its  reserve,  its  Landwehr  and  Landsturm, 
now  began  to  appear. 

But  to  carry  out  this  whole  idea  at  once  was  impossible, 
for  the  spies  of  Napoleon  were  everywhere,  and  no  one 
noted  the  slightest  indication  of  desire  to  regain  liberty 
and  independence  so  keenly  as  he.  Seeing  this  move- 
ment, which  showed  the  German  feeling  for  liberty 
aroused  by  the  Spanish  uprising,  Napoleon  forced  on 
Prussia  a  new  treaty,  supplementary  to  the  Treaty  of 


284  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Tilsit,  which  new  treaty,  besides  other  degrading  condi- 
tions, bound  Prussia  to  keep  down  her  army  to  forty-two 
thousand  men. 

Tyranny  had  now  to  be  met  by  cunning.  Many  of  the 
exterior  features  of  the  old  system  had  to  be  preserved 
as  a  disguise.  The  plan  was  adopted  of  giving  soldiers 
leave  of  absence  after  a  period  of  thorough  drill,  and 
taking  fresh  recruits  in  their  places,  so  that  the  whole 
body  of  young  Prussians  might  pass  through  the  army. 
Everything  was  done  to  evade  the  keenness  of  the  French 
spies :  regiments  were  marched  to  exercise,  leaving  large 
numbers  of  sound  men  in  barracks  or  hospitals,  and  at 
last,  while  nominally  keeping  up  an  army  of  only  forty- 
two  thousand  men,  Scharnhorst  had  trained  and  inspired 
a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand. 

Troubles  arose,  too,  from  the  suspicions  not  only  of 
the  French,  but  of  the  Prussians  themselves.  Nervous 
men,  impatient  men,  frivolous  men,  were  constantly  in 
danger  of  precipitating  a  catastrophe.  Selfishness  and 
prejudice  were  also  active,  and  the  pressure  of  individual 
and  family  influence  against  the  new  system  was  at  times 
enormous;  the  routine  men  in  the  army  raged  against 
Scharnhorst,  and  to  show  the  depth  of  their  scorn  called 
him  "schoolmaster."1 

The  poverty  of  the  country  was  also  a  great  hindrance, 
and  for  months  the  artillery  in  Silesia  could  not  exercise 
effectively  because  Napoleon's  satraps  had  carried  off 
their  powder.  For  five  years,  Scharnhorst,  one  of  the 
most  manly  and  frank  of  men,  had  to  double  and  turn, 
concealing  his  plans  and  acts,  like  a  hunted  criminal, 
until,  at  the  beck  of  Napoleon,  the  King  was  forced  to 
disgrace  him,  and  virtually  to  drive  him  from  the  service. 

But  the  great  work  could  not  then  be  stopped,  and  to 

1  For  most  interesting  and  instructive  details  of  this  struggle,  see 
Treitschke,  Deutsche  Geschichte  im  10.  Jahrhundert,  Erster  Theil,  Zwciter 
Abschnitt. 


STEIN  285 

these  beginnings  are  due,  in  great  measure,  not  only  the 
glories  of  Leipsic  and  Waterloo,  a  few  years  later,  but  of 
Diippel,  Sadowa,  St.  Privat,  and  Sedan.  Scharnhorst, 
with  Stein  advising  and  strengthening  him,  thus  began 
the  military  system  which  Moltke  and  Roon  completed. 

But  while  Stein  stood  firmly  and  hopefully  by  his  great 
colleague,  providing  for  the  wants  of  the  nation  and  lay- 
ing plans  to  baffle  Napoleon,  he  was  still  occupied  with 
the  civic  system  and  with  the  reorganization  of  the  gen- 
eral administration.  Having  taken  measures  for  the 
abolition  of  monopolies, — the  mill  monopoly,  the  millstone 
monopoly,  the  butcher,  the  baker,  the  huckster  monop- 
olies, and  a  multitude  of  others, — and  having  rooted  up, 
as  far  as  possible,  all  barriers  against  the  admission  of 
women  to  various  trades  and  occupations  for  which  they 
were  fit,  his  main  strength  was  thrown  into  adminis- 
trative reform.  This,  in  many  respects,  was  the  great- 
est work  of  all,  though  he  did  not  remain  in  office  long 
enough  to  complete  it. 

The  general  administrative  system  of  Prussia  had  be- 
come a  muddle  like  all  the  rest.  There  were  councils, 
chambers,  directories,  departments,  cabinets,  ministers 
administrative,  ministers  territorial,  generally  working 
in  accordance  with  outworn  needs  or  ideas,  or  with 
the  appetites  or  whims  of  the  persons  who  hap- 
pened to  sit  on  the  throne.  A  strong  king,  like 
Frederick  the  Great,  did  mainly  without  them;  a  lux- 
urious king,  like  Frederick  William  the  Fat,  left  them 
to  lumber  on  chaotically ;  a  mediocre  king,  like  Frederick 
William  III,  unable  to  see  his  way  in  this  jungle,  knew 
no  other  plan  than  to  lean  on  a  little  coterie  of  favorites, 
and  to  avoid  any  decision  as  long  as  possible. 

The  local  administrations  were  of  like  quality.  Out 
of  these  Stein  began  developing  something  better.  He 
made  no  attempt  to  change  suddenly  the  nature  of  the 
people :  whatever  had  helpful  life  in  it,  he  endeavored  to 


286  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

preserve,  and  he  especially  sought  to  restore  some  fea- 
tures introduced  by  Frederick  William  I,  which,  under 
Frederick  the  Great,  had  been  lost  sight  of. 

The  edict  drawn  up  under  his  direction  proposed  to 
give  to  the  whole  administration  the  greatest  possible 
energy  and  activity,  and  yet  to  put  all  in  direct  relations 
with  the  central  government.  The  plan  was  wrought  out 
carefully  and  logically;  large  as  a  whole,  precise  as  to 
details,  it  combined  all  Stein's  experience — his  knowl- 
edge of  men,  his  boldness,  his  caution. 

Preliminary  to  all  this  was  the  creation  of  a  Council 
of  State,  made  up  of  fitting  men  from  the  royal  family, 
ministers,  privy  councilors  of  distinction,  former  min- 
isters, heads  of  bureaus  and  of  departments;  but  a  far 
more  important  change  was  one  which  in  these  days  seems 
exceedingly  simple,  but  which  in  those  seemed  almost 
impossible, — the  assignment  of  a  small  number  of  min- 
isters to  the  main  subjects  of  administration  throughout 
the  whole  monarchy.  These  ministers  were  mainly  of 
the  interior,  finance,  foreign  affairs,  war,  and  justice ;  and, 
with  a  few  other  officials  of  great  experience,  formed  a 
cabinet  to  decide  on  various  weighty  and  general  mat- 
ters,— with  the  understanding,  which  now  seems  axio- 
matic, but  which  then  seemed  chimerical,  that  no  clique 
of  favorites  should  stand  between  cabinet  and  king. 

Various  departments,  each  with  a  minister  at  its  head, 
have  been  added  since  Stein's  day, — a  Ministry  of  Trade 
and  Commerce,  a  Ministry  of  Agriculture,  a  Ministry  of 
Ecclesiastical,  Educational,  and  Medical  Affairs ;  but  his 
simple  system,  as  a  whole,  remains  as  he  planned  it. 

For  historical  and  patriotic  reasons,  he  rejected  the 
example  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  allowed  the  old 
territorial  divisions  to  remain,  with  proper  officers,  each 
with  functions  which  could  be  discharged  for  the  good  of 
the  country,  but  without  injury  to  the  new  system.  The 
general  local  system  was  also  carefully  studied,  and  re- 


STEIN  287 

forms  were  begun  in  accordance  with  experience  and 
sound  sense.  Stein  had  expected  to  go  further  into  the 
lower  local  organization,  but  he  was  too  soon  driven  from 
office.  His  successors  attempted  to  deal  with  it,  injur- 
ing it  in  some  respects,  improving  it  in  others ;  but,  taken 
as  a  whole,  his  was  a  great  and  fruitful  beginning,  and  it 
has  grown  into  that  system  which  has  made  Prussia  the 
most  carefully  and  conscientiously  administered  nation 
in  the  world; — doubtless  with  sundry  disadvantages — 
with  too  much  interference  and  control,  with  too  little  in- 
dividual initiative,  but,  after  all,  wonderfully  well  man- 
aged. At  the  present  time,  one  of  the  most  interesting 
of  studies  for  a  close  political  thinker  would  be  a  com- 
parison between  this  system,  which  seems  to  hold  that 
government  best  which  governs  most,  and  our  own, 
which,  in  theory,  holds  that  government  best  which  gov- 
erns least. 

Stein's  object  was  to  secure,  in  the  whole  administra- 
tion, unity,  energy,  and  responsibility.  His  correspond- 
ence and  his  papers  show  that  he  intended  later  to  pro- 
pose a  parliamentary  system,  with  two  houses,  in  which 
the  better  national  spirit  could  be  brought  to  bear  on 
the  discussion  of  general  affairs  and  on  the  en- 
lightened support  of  the  monarchy.  Royal  edicts  put 
in  force  his  plans,  as  far  as  he  had  developed  them, 
during  the  latter  months  of  1808,  but  anything  further 
was  prevented  by  a  catastrophe.  During  the  whole  year 
Napoleon  was  striving  to  free  himself  from  the  fearful 
complication  of  his  affairs.  Up  to  this  time,  his  con- 
quests had  been  comparatively  simple  and  easy.  Aus- 
tria, Prussia,  and  Italy  were  beneath  his  feet,  and  he 
had  now  attempted  a  policy  of  conquest  in  the  Spanish 
Peninsula.  Here  came  the  first  capital  folly  of  his 
career.  Spain  was  ignorant,  corrupt,  priest-ridden,  but 
it  was  not  a  collection  of  ill-compacted  governments  like 
Germany;  it  was,  with  all  its  faults,  a  nation,  and  its 


288  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

uprising  against  Napoleon's  effort  was  the  beginning  of 
the  anti-Napoleonic  revolution.  At  every  important 
point  in  Spain  Napoleon's  marshals  were  worsted,  and 
at  Baylen  came  a  great  disgrace:  for  the  first  time  in 
his  history,  one  of  his  armies  was  forced  to  capitulate. 
In  the  Portuguese  part  of  the  Peninsula,  where  the 
British  forces  aided  those  of  the  population,  he  encoun- 
tered the  same  desperate  resistance.  The  Emperor's 
brother  was  obliged  to  flee  from  the  Spanish  throne,  and 
finally  the  great  conqueror  himself  found  it  necessary  to 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  his  army  against  the  Spanish 
people ;  but,  though  for  a  time  he  broke  down  all  opposi- 
tion, this  revolt  in  Spain  gave  a  new  idea  to  all  Europe, 
— the  idea  that,  after  all,  a  people,  if  united,  could  throw 
off  his  tyranny.  Nowhere  did  this  thought  spread  wider 
or  strike  deeper  than  in  Germany,  and  among  those  most 
profoundly  influenced  by  it  was  Stein. 

In  the  midst  of  his  labor  for  municipal  reform,  admin- 
istrative reform,  military  reform,  Stein  devoted  himself 
to  impressing  this  Spanish  example  upon  the  leading 
men  of  his  country,  especially  by  letters,  and  finally  one 
of  these  letters  fell  into  the  hands  of  Napoleon.  It  had 
become  especially  dangerous  for  any  man,  no  matter 
how  high  in  place,  to  incur  the  wrath  of  the  great  con- 
queror; but  how  great  the  danger  of  Stein  became  has 
only  recently  been  revealed.  For,  within  the  last  ten 
years,  the  world  has  received  a  revelation  of  the  Napo- 
leonic tyranny,  in  Germany  especially,  which  enables  us 
to  see  what  unbridled  autocracy  means  and  to  what  dan- 
gers Stein  exposed  himself  in  opposing  it.  Under  the 
second  French  empire,  there  was  formed,  about  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  pretentious  commis- 
sion, presided  over,  finally,  by  Prince  Napoleon,  the  son 
of  Napoleon's  youngest  brother,  King  Jerome,  which 
published,  in  a  long  series  of  volumes,  what  claimed  to 
be   Napoleon's   complete   correspondence.    But   it   was 


STEIN  289 

soon  found  that  this  correspondence  had  been  carefully 
expurgated,  and  since  that  time  various  investigators 
have  given  to  the  world  letters  which  the  official  com- 
mittee omitted.  There  could  be  no  more  fearful  revela- 
tion of  the  tyranny  engendered  by  unlimited  power. 
The  conqueror  had  come  to  regard  any  resistance  to  his 
plans,  or  even  to  his  wishes,  as  a  crime  worthy  of  death. 
The  whole  world  knew  how  he  had  ordered  the  Due 
d'Enghien  to  be  executed  at  Strasburg  for  a  crime  of 
which  he  was  guiltless,  and  how  he  had  ordered  the 
bookseller  Palm,  at  Nuremberg,  to  execution,  for  having 
in  his  possession  a  simple  and  noble  patriotic  pamphlet; 
but  these  letters  recently  published  by  Lecestre,  Bro- 
tonne,  and  others  have  shown  that  this  cruelty  had  be- 
come, especially  after  his  reverses,  a  prevailing  principle 
with  him. 

In  these  letters  we  find  the  great  conqueror  treating 
his  brothers,  whom  he  had  placed  on  thrones,  as  mere 
lackeys, — with  utter  contempt,  and  with  not  the  slightest 
recognition  of  their  duties  toward  the  people  whom  he 
had  called  them  to  govern.  His  letters  to  them  are  fre- 
quently in  terms  such  as  no  self-respecting  man  ought  to 
use  toward  a  lackey.  Among  the  letters  also  appear 
simple  offhand  instructions  to  his  commanders  in  vari- 
ous parts  of  Germany  which  are  really  orders  to  commit 
murder.  As  a  rule,  at  the  moment  the  spies  of  the  Em- 
peror report  any  person  as  troublesome,  there  comes 
back  a  virtual  order  to  punish  the  offender  with  death. 
Orders  to  shoot  this  or  that  troublesome  patriot  in  Ger- 
many or  Spain  are  frequent,  but  perhaps  the  climax  is 
reached  in  a  dispatch  to  Junot,  to  whom  Napoleon  writes 
that  no  doubt  the  General  has  disarmed  Lisbon,  and  adds, 
"Shoot,  say,  sixty  persons."  1 

1  For  examples  of  these  letters  showing  Napoleon's  rage  provoked  by 
opposition,  see  Lecestre,  Lettres  Inedites  de  Napoleon  {An.  viii — 1815), 
Paris,  1897,  passim,  and  especially  for  the  letter  to  Junot,  p.  136.  Also 
de  Brotonne,  Lettres  Inedites  de  Napoleon,  Paris,  1898. 

3.9 


290  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

It  was  in  this  frame  of  mind  that  Napoleon  read 
Stein's  intercepted  letter,  and  his  wrath  became  at  once 
venomous.  At  first  it  was  somewhat  dissembled,  prob- 
ably with  the  hope  of  bringing  the  culprit  more  easily 
within  striking  distance.  The  notice  of  it  in  the  Moni- 
teur,  on  September  8,  1808,  was  merely  contemptuous, 
but  this  was  the  prelude  to  more  severe  measures  against 
Prussia,  and,  three  months  later,  Napoleon,  from  his  camp 
at  Madrid,  issued  his  decree  placing  the  German  states- 
man not  only  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire,  but  under 
the  outlawry  of  Europe. 

Beginning  with  a  contemptuous  reference  to  him  as 
"a  person  named  Stein,"  this  decree  proceeds  with  a 
notice  that  his  property  of  every  sort  in  all  parts  of 
Germany  and  in  France  is  confiscated,  and  it  ends  with 
an  order  to  seize  him  "wherever  he  can  be  caught  by  our 
own  troops  or  those  of  our  allies."  This  edict  was 
posted  in  every  part  of  Germany,  and  even  in  Poland. 
Though  Stein,  from  the  first  discovery  of  his  letter  by 
Napoleon,  must  have  seen  its  inevitable  result,  he  braved 
all  dangers.  His  heart  was  set  on  the  edict  for  admin- 
istrative reform,  and  to  this  he  devoted  himself,  until, 
on  the  24th  of  November,  the  King  was  at  last  induced  to 
sign  it.  And  still  Stein  lingered  to  render  other  admin- 
istrative services,  until  his  family  and  friends,  in  utter 
distress,  prevailed  upon  him  to  consider  his  own  safety, 
and  possible  future  services  to  his  country.  On  the  night 
of  January  5,  1809,  he  took  flight  in  a  sledge  from  Prus- 
sia into  the  snowy  mountains  of  Bohemia,  and  for  three 
years,  amid  privations,  illness,  and  suffering,  though 
constantly  active,  he  was,  by  the  world  at  large,  unheard 
of.  There  seemed  to  come  to  him  as  complete  an  efface- 
ment  of  personality  and  influence  as  to  Luther  during  his 
stay  in  the  Wartburg. 

Stein's  escape  was  made  none  too  soon.  The  simple 
fact  was  that  Napoleon  recognized  in  him  a  man  who 


STEIN  291 

understood  the  Napoleonic  policy  thoroughly ;  who  knew, 
down  to  the  last  details,  the  whole  story,  not  only  of  the 
Treaty  of  Tilsit,  but  of  Napoleon's  violations  of  it,  and 
of  that  wholesale  plunder,  without  warrant  of  the  treaty, 
which  Germany  was  forced  to  endure  during  the  years 
which  followed  it.  More  than  this,  the  conqueror  recog- 
nized in  Stein  a  man  whose  German  patriotism  was  in- 
vincible ;  one  who  saw  the  vulnerable  point  in  the  Napo- 
leonic system  of  conquest,  as  Napoleon  himself  must  have 
begun  to  see  it  at  Madrid  when  the  official  proclamation 
against  his  enemy  was  issued; — one  who  had  the  gift, 
also,  of  inoculating  others  with  his  patriotic  spirit. 
Therefore  it  was  that  Napoleon,  who  had  at  first  urged 
him  upon  the  King  of  Prussia  as  a  man  whose  financial 
talent  and  genius  could  develop  the  nation  for  the  better 
support  of  the  French  armies,  now  made  him  an  outlaw, 
and  would  certainly,  could  he  have  laid  his  hands  upon 
him,  have  put  him  to  death. 

This  was  no  ordinary  case  of  outlawry,  and  it  brought 
results  which  the  conqueror  little  foresaw.  It  gave  Stein 
a  hold  on  the  German  heart  which  all  his  vast  services 
had  failed  to  gain.  It  secured  him  recognition  as  a 
leader  throughout  Europe,  from  royal  palaces  to  the  huts 
of  peasants.  It  inspired  phlegmatic  men  with  indigna- 
tion, and  prosaic  men  with  eloquence.  Of  this  there  is 
a  striking  example  to  be  found  in  every  good  historical 
library.  About  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Privy  Councilor  Dr.  Pertz,  eminent  for  close  historical 
research,  director  of  the  Royal  Library  at  Berlin,  gave  to 
the  world  his  Life  of  Stein.  It  was  in  seven  octavos, 
closely  printed,  a  collection  which  Carlyle  would  have 
blasphemed  as  the  work  of  the  arch-fiend  Dryasdust,  but 
which,  though  minute  and  painstaking  almost  to  a  fault, 
betrays  a  wholesome  enthusiasm.  Throughout  the  whole 
seven  volumes  the  erudite  Privy  Councilor  restrains  him- 
self ;  but,  when  he  reaches  this  period  in  Stein's  history, 


292  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

there  comes  the  one  outburst  of  eloquent  indignation  in 
the  whole  vast  work.  Having  given  the  text  of  Napo- 
leon's edict,  dated  in  his  camp  at  Madrid,  the  historian 
gives  scope  to  his  feelings  as  follows : — 

"At  the  quarters  of  the  French  troops  at  Erfurt,  at 
Magdeburg,  and  at  Hanover,  the  population  read  with 
astonishment  and  sorrow  this  declaration  of  war  whereby 
the  conqueror  of  Marengo,  Ulm,  Austerlitz,  Jena,  Fried- 
land,  and  Tudela,  the  sovereign  of  France,  Italy,  Holland, 
Switzerland,  half  of  Germany,  and  the  whole  of  Spain, 
singled  out  one  defenseless  man  from  the  innumerable 
numbers  of  his  contemporaries  and  branded  him  as  his 
enemy  for  life  and  death.  But  this  measure  of  blind 
passion,  far  from  reaching  its  purpose,  turned  against 
the  man  who  devised  it.  Napoleon's  hate  pointed  out  to 
his  enemies  their  main  hope.  Innumerable  men  then  read 
Stein's  name  for  the  first  time,  but  this  outlawry  at 
once  surrounded  his  head  with  the  halo  of  a  martyr.  The 
hearts  which  in  all  parts  of  Germany  longed  for  freedom 
had  found  their  living  leader.  He  became  instantly  a 
personage  on  whom  downtrodden  peoples  far  outside  the 
boundaries  of  Prussia  placed  their  hopes  and  expecta- 
tions; and,  that  the  mightiest  of  this  earth  might  stand 
in  awe  of  eternal  justice,  from  this  'person  named  Stein,' 
six  years  later,  went  forth  that  thought  of  a  European 
outlawry  to  which  the  Emperor  of  a  hundred  days  was 
to  yield."1 

i  See  Pertz,  Leben  Steins,  vol.  ii,  pp.  319,  320.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that 
Pertz  himself  first  heard  of  Stein  when  he  read  Napoleon's  proclamation 
placing  him  under  the  ban. 


Ill 

BUT  a  dark  veil  hung  over  this  retributory  future. 
The  mighty  of  the  earth,  whether  French  or  German, 
considered  this  outburst  of  Napoleon's  hate  as  a  decree 
blasting  Stein's  entire  future.  Yet  this  Napoleonic  hate 
was  by  no  means  the  worst  thing  that  Stein  had  to  en- 
counter ;  even  more  galling  to  his  spirit  was  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  German  courtiers  and  nobles,  and  especially 
of  those  who  had  taken  positions  under  the  Napoleonic 
regime.  By  these  the  bitterest  epithets  were  now  lav- 
ished upon  him.  It  became  an  every-day  thing  among 
the  court  and  government  officials  to  declare  him  the 
worst  foe  to  monarchy.  From  time  to  time,  Napoleon 
followed  up  the  decree  of  outlawry  by  charging  him  with 
Jacobinism;  and  not  only  in  Prussia,  but  throughout  Ger- 
many. At  the  Austrian  capital,  Stein's  efforts  to  uplift 
the  lower  orders  of  the  Prussian  people  gave  strength  to 
this  charge.  His  idea  of  appealing  to  the  national  feel- 
ing was  declared  to  be  more  dangerous  than  the  worst 
tyrannies  of  Napoleon;  a  large  body  of  influential  men 
and  women  devoted  themselves  to  everything  which  could 
thwart  his  efforts,  and  some  of  them  kept  Napoleon  in- 
formed regarding  him,  thus  helping  to  bring  on  the  catas- 
trophe. Seeley,  in  his  Life  of  Stein,  hesitates  to  believe 
this,  but  no  one  can  study  the  pages  of  Pertz  and  Treit- 
schke  without  becoming  convinced  that  many  of  Stein's 
German  enemies  were  capable  of  going  to  any  length  in 
betraying  him. 

In  the  midst  of  this  personal  catastrophe,  he  was  con- 
stantly meditating  not  merely  means  of  raising  the  Ger- 
man nation  against  the  Napoleonic  tyranny,  but  new  re- 
forms which  should  strengthen  the  people  for  the  coming 

293 


294  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

struggle.  Just  before  leaving  office,  he  presented  to  the 
King  a  summary  of  his  views  which  has  passed  into 
history  under  the  name  of  "Stein's  Political  Testament. " 
In  this  his  wish  to  crown  the  whole  edifice  with  a  legisla- 
tive system,  and  to  bind  the  whole  together  with  a  con- 
stitution, is  made  clear.  As  he  had  changed  the  rural 
population  from  serfs  to  freemen,  the  dwellers  in  cities 
from  ciphers  to  citizens,  and  the  whole  administration 
from  a  worn-out  machine  to  a  vigorous,  living  organism, 
so  it  now  became  clear  that  he  wished  to  change  the  old 
Prussian  despotism  into  a  limited  monarchy,  tempered  by 
a  national  representation,  such  as  came  to  Prussia  forty 
years  later,  after  the  revolutions  of  1830  and  1848. 

For  the  time  being  all  these  patriotic  efforts  were 
brought  to  naught  by  what  Napoleon  considered  Stein's 
unpardonable  sin:  his  crime  in  detecting  and  discussing 
the  vulnerable  point  in  the  Napoleonic  system, — the  heel 
of  Achilles.  He  it  was  who,  more  than  any  other,  had 
detected  and  accentuated  in  his  private  letters  to  leading 
German  patriots  the  significance  of  that  Spanish  national 
uprising  against  Napoleon  in  1808,  and  thus  for  the  first 
time  had  given  Europe  an  idea  of  the  way  in  which 
Napoleonic  tyranny  could  be  overthrown.  To  meet  this 
action  by  Stein,  Napoleon  was  by  no  means  content  sim- 
ply to  drive  him  from  office  and  threaten  his  life;  the 
next  move  was  to  extort  a  new  treaty  from  Prussia, 
grinding  down  the  North  German  people  more  wretch- 
edly than  ever  before. 

During  Stein's  flight,  and,  indeed,  during  his  whole 
outlawry,  he  remained,  in  spite  of  the  ruin  of  his  family 
and  the  fate  which  menaced  him,  calm,  thoughtful,  and 
determined  as  ever.  His  confidence  that  the  masses  were 
ready  to  resist  foreign  aggression  and  eager  to  secure 
their  political  independence  remained  unshaken.  It  was 
at  this  crisis  that  he  wrote:  "The  spirit  of  the  people 
is  excellent;  in  all  classes  prevails  a  self-sacrificing  devo- 


STEIN  295 

tion  to  the  good  cause  which  is  truly  affecting  and  beau- 
tiful (wahrhaft  ruhrend  und  schon)."  The  three  years 
which  he  passed  in  Moravia  and  Bohemia  he  used  to  the 
best  possible  purpose:  though  never  noisily  active,  he 
continued  to  be  the  trusted  guide  and  counselor  of  the 
men  who  were  to  bring  in  a  better  future  for  his  country. 
The  influence  of  his  invincible  patriotism  steadily  in- 
creased. Napoleon's  new  war  with  Austria,  that  of  1809, 
was  now  clearly  drawing  on.  Had  Stein  remained  in  the 
ministry  at  Berlin,  Prussia  would  probably  have  acted 
energetically  and  promptly  with  Austria  against  the  in- 
vader, the  course  of  European  history  would  have  been 
different,  and  six  years  more  of  war  on  the  largest  scale, 
and  myriads  of  lives  would  doubtless  have  been  spared ; 
but,  though  Stein  left  many  good  men  and  true  in  the 
ministry  at  Berlin,  they  had  not  that  strength  with  which 
he  had  been  wont  to  overcome  the  King's  fatal  indecision, 
and  Austria  was  left  to  her  fate. 

There  was,  indeed,  one  moment  when  his  own  distress 
and  the  apparent  hopelessness  of  Germany  and  of  Eu- 
rope before  its  oppressor  led  him  to  other  thoughts. 
Interesting  to  an  American  is  a  letter  written  by  him  in 
1811,  in  which  he  says,  "I  am  heartily  tired  of  life  and 
wish  it  would  soon  come  to  an  end.  To  enjoy  rest  and 
independence,  it  would  be  best  to  settle  in  America, — in 
Kentucky  or  Tennessee ;  there  one  would  find  a  splendid 
climate  and  soil,  glorious  rivers,  and  rest  and  security 
for  a  century,  not  to  mention  a  multitude  of  Germans — 
the  capital  of  Kentucky  is  called  Frankfort." 

But  this  mood  seems  to  have  been  only  momentary, 
and  he  soon  returned  to  patriotic  work  as  earnest  as  ever, 
always  without  haste,  but  without  rest,  in  unison  with  the 
best  men  in  Prussia  and  Austria, — still  their  most  influ- 
ential leader. 

Great  men,  animated  by  his  example,  rebuilt  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Prussian  state  at  many  points.    William 


296  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

von  Humboldt  reorganized  the  whole  system  of  public 
instruction,  gave  new  life  to  higher  education,  welded 
together  the  best  ideas  of  the  foremost  thinkers  of  his 
time,  and  crowned  all  with  the  University  of  Berlin, 
which  remains  to  this  day  the  foremost  in  the  world. 
Fichte  issued  his  Addresses  to  the  German  Nation 
(Reden  an  die  Deutsche  Nation),  which  gave  new  heart 
to  the  whole  oncoming  array  of  manly  youth.  Schleier- 
macher  preached  his  sermons,  which,  casting  aside  the 
mere  husks  and  rinds  of  ordinary  orthodoxy,  developed 
not  sickly  cowards,  merely  or  mainly  anxious  to  save 
their  own  souls,  but  men  willing  to  strive  for  good  as 
good, — willing  to  die  for  their  country.  Arndt  wrote 
his  Spirit  of  the  Times  (Geist  der  Zeit),  which  ran 
through  fifteen  editions,  and,  at  a  later  period,  his  great 
song,  "Was  ist  des  Deutschen  Vaterland?"  stirring  an 
enthusiasm  for  German  unity  and  liberty  which  would- 
be  oppressors  have  ever  since  found  irresistible. 

More  and  more,  Stein,  proscribed  and  a  fugitive,  be- 
came a  centre  of  thought;  " where  he  was,  was  the  head 
of  the  table."  His  famous  successor  in  the  Prussian 
government,  Hardenberg,  went  to  meet  him  secretly  in 
the  Silesian  mountains,  advised  with  him,  and  soon 
Stein's  ideas  took  shape  in  new  reforms,  constitutional 
and  financial.  The  old  religious  endowments,  Catholic 
and  Protestant,  which  had  absorbed  so  much  treasure, 
were  subjected  to  heavy  forced  loans;  dead  capital  was 
thus  made  living,  and  trade  and  industry  relieved  from 
a  weight  of  taxation  which  was  crushing  out  all  busi- 
ness life.  A  representative  system,  local  and  general, 
was  more  and  more  distinctly  foreshadowed,  and,  ani- 
mated by  Stein's  example,  Hardenberg  even  outran 
Stein's  counsels:  in  all  of  Prussia  where  he  had  direct 
control,  he  exerted  himself  to  transform  the  peasants 
from  renting  tenants  into  owners  of  the  soil. 

Meantime,  new  catastrophes   came.     Austria,   unsup- 


STEIN  297 

ported  by  Prussia,  endeavored  to  stand  against  Napo- 
leon, and,  at  last,  despite  official  stupidity  and  sloth, 
exhibited,  especially  in  the  Tyrol,  a  resisting  force  never 
before  seen  in  her  campaigns,  a  national  spirit  akin  to 
that  which  had  struck  Napoleon  so  severe  a  blow  in 
Spain,  an  energy  which  inflicted  upon  him,  at  Aspern, 
his  first  great  defeat  by  Germans.  Had  Stein  been 
at  the  side  of  the  wavering  Frederick  William  III,  Prus- 
sia might  now  have  joined  in  the  struggle;  but,  before 
the  Prussian  King  could  make  up  his  mind  to  give  his 
help,  Austria  was  overcome  at  Wagram,  and  Stadion, 
as  prime  minister,  was  forced  to  give  way  to  the  arch- 
intriguer,  Metternich.  Now  comes  apparently  the  cul- 
mination of  the  Napoleonic  epoch.  Metternich  marries 
a  daughter  of  the  Austrian  House  to  Napoleon,  and  thus 
ushers  in  upon  Europe  another  long  series  of  sacrifices 
and  sorrows,  with  that  heartbreaking  policy  of  intrigue, 
political  immorality,  and  reaction  which  outlasted  Napo- 
leon by  more  than  thirty  years. 

In  these  darkest  hours  Stein  never  lost  heart,  but  one 
great  change  was  wrought  in  him, — he  became  less  and 
less  a  Prussian  and  more  and  more  a  German.  He 
would  not  yield  to  the  oppressor  of  his  country,  and, 
being  no  longer  safe  in  Austria,  he  again  became  an 
exile. 

In  Napoleon's  hand  were  now  all  the  great  nations  of 
Continental  Europe  save  one.  Alexander  of  Russia, 
despite  his  shameful  concessions  at  the  Treaty  of  Tilsit, 
shrank  from  the  further  iniquities  into  which  Napoleon 
attempted  to  draw  him,  and,  as  Napoleon  allowed  no 
dissent  from  his  plans,  war  drew  on  between  these  two 
great  powers.  Therefore  it  was  that,  just  as  King  Fred- 
erick William  had  sought  Stein's  aid  after  the  down- 
fall of  Prussia,  so  now  Emperor  Alexander  sought 
Stein  at  what  Europe  generally  considered  the  ap- 
proaching downfall  of  Russia.     Personal  prudence  coun- 


298  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

seled  Stein  to  lie  quiet,  to  allow  himself  to  be  forgotten, 
to  wait  for  better  days.  It  was  dangerous  indeed  for 
him  to  throw  himself  against  Napoleon,  even  in  Russia. 
Russia  then,  as  now,  was  poor,  her  policy  tricky,  her 
officials  corrupt,  her  ruler  weak.  Napoleon,  the  greatest 
conqueror  the  world  ever  saw,  was  at  that  moment  pass- 
ing over  her  frontier  with  more  than  half  a  million  sol- 
diers, apparently  invincible,  and,  should  Stein  engage 
himself  actively  against  Napoleon  in  Russia,  a  French 
triumph  would  bring  him  to  the  scaffold,  or  at  least  to 
long  exile.  How  Napoleon  treated  those  who  troubled 
him — whom  he  affected  to  despise — was  seen  in  the 
orders  for  drumhead  court-martials,  which  were  now  sent 
more  frequently  than  ever  to  his  agents  throughout 
Germany,  how  he  would  certainly  have  treated  Stein 
could  he  have  laid  hands  upon  him  is  seen  in  the  Em- 
peror's letters  to  his  minister,  Champagny. 

But  with  Stein  this  weighed  nothing.  He  immedi- 
ately joined  Alexander  at  his  headquarters,  and  the 
Emperor  at  once  tendered  him  high  position  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  finance  or  of  public  instruction.  But  all 
this  Stein  declined,  declaring  frankly  that  his  main  pur- 
pose was  to  act  in  the  interest  of  Germany.  His  mission 
as  regarded  Russia  was  to  keep  up  the  courage  of  the 
Russian  Emperor;  his  special  effort  as  regarded  Ger- 
many was  to  arouse  her  to  arms,  so  as  to  cut  off  Napo- 
leon's army  from  France.  Stein  took  the  lead  in  this 
effort,  corresponded  more  actively  than  ever  with  Ger- 
man patriots  in  every  part  of  Europe,  spurred  or  curbed 
patriotism,  as  there  was  need,  answered  sophists,  sum- 
moned Arndt  to  his  side  and  inspired  him  to  write  those 
appeals  to  patriotism  which  stirred  the  hearts  of  the 
whole  German  people. 

Yet  still,  throughout  Germany,  a  large  party  at  the 
various  courts,  though  they  dreaded  Napoleon  much, 
hated  Stein  more.     His  appeals  to  the  people  still  seemed 


STEIN  299 

to  these  so-called  conservatives  revolutionary.  Their 
necessary  result  was  an  infusion  of  life  and  thought  into 
the  people  which  would  first,  indeed,  be  directed  against 
the  new  French  oppressor;  but  which  might  afterward, 
perhaps,  be  directed  against  their  old  German  oppres- 
sors. Foremost  in  holding  these  views  was  the  old 
Emperor  of  Austria,  and  his  most  trusted  minister, 
Metternich. 

In  Russia  the  opposition  to  Stein  was  of  another  sort, 
but  hardly  less  serious.  Napoleon's  successes  had  spread 
terror  through  the  court.  The  awful  sacrifices  of  Rus- 
sian soldiers  during  the  French  invasion,  which  were 
hardly  less  than  those  of  Napoleon's  own  troops,  filled 
the  leading  Russian  families  with  dismay.  The  steady 
march  of  the  French,  winning  battle  after  battle,  and 
finally  entering  Moscow,  gave  the  party  of  peace  at  any 
price  most  cogent  arguments.  Led  by  the  Dowager  Em- 
press and  others  of  the  imperial  household,  this  party 
became  clamorous.  Napoleon,  foreseeing  his  own  dan- 
ger, and  knowing  Alexander's  wavering  character,  sent 
him  the  most  seductive  messages  and  used  the  most  entic- 
ing arguments;  again  he  held  out  the  lure  of  a  virtual 
division  of  the  civilized  world  between  the  two  Emperors. 

Against  all  this  pressure  Stein  stood  firm,  and,  more 
than  any  other,  kept  Alexander  firm.  His  statesmanlike 
eye  saw  Napoleon's  real  position,  and  he  made  the  Rus- 
sian Emperor  see  it ;  he  roused  the  courage  of  the  Russian 
patriots,  and  chilled  the  ardor  of  the  sympathizers  with 
France.  But,  important  though  it  was  to  leave  no  stone 
unturned  against  the  enemies  of  his  country,  he  was  still 
the  sturdy  baron  of  the  old  German  Empire — utterly 
refusing  to  become  a  mere  courtier.  Such  frankness, 
straightforwardness,  and  fearlessness  as  his  has  never 
been  seen  in  Russia  before  or  since.  On  one  occasion 
the  Empress  Dowager,  the  mother  of  Alexander,  received 
a  lesson  from  him,  in  the  presence  of  the  court,  which 


300        SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

to  this  day  remains  one  of  the  wonders  of  Eussian  his- 
tory. After  the  battle  of  Borodino,  the  Empress,  in  a 
temporary  fit  of  enthusiasm,  cried  out  in  Stein's  presence, 
"If  now  a  single  French  soldier  shall  escape  from  the 
German  borders,  I  shall  be  ashamed  to  confess  myself 
of  German  descent."  The  court  chroniclers  tell  us  that 
Stein  immediately  became  red  and  white  by  turns, 
marched  up  to  the  Empress,  stood  firmly  before  her,  and 
said,  in  the  hearing  of  all  present,  "Your  Majesty  is 
most  unjust  to  speak  in  this  manner  of  so  great,  so  true, 
so  bold  a  people  as  that  to  which  you  have  the  good 
fortune  to  belong  by  birth.  You  should  have  said,  1 1  am 
ashamed,  not  of  the  German  people,  but  of  my  own 
brothers  and  cousins,  the  German  princes.  Had  they 
done  their  duty,  never  had  a  Frenchman  come  over  the 
Elbe,  Oder,  or  Vistula.'  "  Any  one  acquainted  at  all 
with  the  Byzantine  submission  exacted  at  the  Eussian 
Court  can  understand  the  consternation  spread  by  these 
plain  words ;  but,  fortunately,  the  Empress,  having  some- 
thing left  of  her  better  German  ideas  and  training,  an- 
swered, "Sir  Baron,  you  are  perhaps  right.  I  thank  you 
for  the  lesson." 

The  whole  conduct  of  Stein  at  this  period,  and  indeed 
throughout  all  the  last  years  of  his  official  life,  was  due 
not  merely  to  his  hatred  for  the  oppressor  of  his  country, 
but  to  a  deep  faith  that  Napoleon's  career  was  a  chal- 
lenge to  the  Almighty,  and  that  therefore  it  could  not 
continue.  Stein  noted  well  the  sacrifices  which  Napoleon, 
without  fear  or  remorse,  had  demanded  of  the  nation 
which  worshiped  him.  The  number  of  his  subjects  who 
during  his  reign  had  laid  down  their  lives  to  exalt  him 
was  something  over  two  millions.  This  devotion  meant 
the  annihilation,  during  every  year  that  the  Empire  con- 
tinued, of  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  lives,  and  these 
the  most  vigorous  and  promising  lives  which  France  could 
offer.     This,  Stein  saw,  could  not  last;  and  he  had  a 


STEIN  ^301 

deep  conviction  that,  even  if  it  could  last,  it  was  so  mon- 
strous a  crime  against  the  Divine  Majesty  that  it  must 
surely  be  punished.1 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  to  Stein,  more  than  to 
any  other  human  being,  it  is  due  that,  after  the  burning 
of  Moscow,  Alexander  refused  to  enter  into  any  further 
negotiations  with  Napoleon;  and  this  refusal  it  was  that 
brought  Napoleon  to  ruin.  The  conqueror  relied  on  the 
pliancy  of  Alexander,  as  he  had  seen  him  at  Tilsit  and 
elsewhere,  but  he  had  not  reckoned  on  the  firmness  in- 
spired by  the  greatest  of  German  patriots.2 

Now  came  the  great  question  of  questions,  What  shall 
Russia  do?  It  was  the  supreme  moment — the  time  of  all 
times.  The  advice  of  the  elegant  diplomatists  about  the 
Czar,  headed  by  his  Imperial  Chancellor,  was  that  she 
should  patch  up  a  peace,  curry  favor  with  Napoleon,  and 
thus  secure  large  additions  of  territory  at  the  expense  of 
Prussia  and  Turkey.  The  danger  of  Germany  was  im- 
minent— the  danger  of  a  renewal  of  that  old  alliance 
between  the  French  Emperor  and  the  Russian  Czar  at 
Tilsit,  made  more  effective  than  ever  to  plunder  the  Ger- 
man people  and  to  blot  out  German  nationality — in  fact, 
to  make  Prussia  a  second  Poland.  Stein,  more  than  any 
other    man,    averted    this    danger;    drove    the    leading 

i  For  other  striking  examples  of  Stein's  boldness  of  speech  before  the 
mighty  of  the  earth,  see  Pertz,  vol.  iv,  pp.  152,  153.  For  the  reckoning  of 
French  lives  lost  under  the  Napoleonic  Empire,  see  a  careful  statement  in 
Alison,  History  of  Europe. 

2  It  seems  to  me  clear  that  Professor  Seeley,  admirable  as  is  his  Life  of 
Stein,  wrote  under  academic  limitations  which  prevented  full  appreciation 
of  Stein's  influence  at  this  crisis.  His  argument  that  "public  opinion" 
kept  the  Emperor  Alexander  up  to  the  required  pitch  of  firmness  must 
seem  to  one  acquainted  with  official  life  in  Russia  utterly  inadequate. 
Two  official  residences  in  Russia  during  trying  times  have  shown  me  that 
"public  opinion"  in  that  country,  down  to  the  present  moment,  has  always 
been  the  opinion  of  the  Czar,  if  he  is  man  enough  to  have  an  opinion;  and 
if  he  is  not,  "public  opinion"  is  the  feeling  of  some  exceptionally  strong 
man  or  clique.  At  the  period  now  referred  to,  Stein  was  by  far  the 
strongest  man  in  Alexander's  councils. 


302  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

intriguers  out  of  the  Russian  councils ;  filled  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  Czar  with  the  idea  of  becoming,  not  a  robber 
of  Germany,  but  the  savior  of  Europe.  Since  Richelieu 
made  the  weakling  Louis  XIII  a  champion  of  French 
unity  and  a  leader  against  Austrian  tyranny  in  Europe, 
never  until  now  had  a  statesman  exhibited  such  power  to 
turn  a  great  sovereign  to  his  own  noble  purposes. 
Events  conspired  to  aid  him.  Stein's  worst  enemy  in 
Prussia,  General  Yorck,  who,  with  a  Prussian  auxiliary 
army,  had  been  dragged  by  Napoleon  into  Russia,  took 
advantage  of  the  Moscow  catastrophe;  and,  in  spite  of 
the  King's  loudly  proclaimed  disapproval,  turned  against 
Napoleon,  risked  death  for  high  treason,  and  for  a  time 
bade  defiance  to  the  nominal  orders  of  his  own  sovereign, 
Frederick  William  III. 

Stein  was  no  less  bold  than  Yorck.  The  Russians 
having  conquered  that  large  region  centering  at  Konigs- 
berg,  all  so  dear  to  Prussia,  Stein  took  a  Russian  com- 
mission to  go,  virtually  as  a  Russian  viceroy,  into  those 
Prussian  frontier  provinces;  ruled  them,  raised  them, 
in  defiance  of  their  Prussian  sovereign,  against 
Napoleon,  who  was  that  sovereign's  nominal  ally;  and, 
worse  than  this,  committed  a  sin  unpardonable  in  the 
Prussia  of  that  time  by  calling  together,  without  orders, 
or  even  the  permission  of  the  Prussian  King,  a  parlia- 
ment which  should  provide  for  war  against  the  French 
oppressor. 

This  was  a  crowning  audacity.  King  Frederick  Wil- 
liam and  his  bureaucrats,  though  they  profited  by  it, 
never  forgot  it.  Stein  received  honors  afterward  from 
Prussia,  but  was  never  recalled  into  the  Prussian  serv- 
ice. To  Frederick  William  he  seemed  the  most  dan- 
gerous of  Germans.  To  Napoleon,  he  was  certainly  the 
most  dangerous;  for  never,  even  at  the  climax  of  his 
power,  did  the  Emperor  omit  a  chance  to  cast  a  slur 
upon  him,  to  express  his  hatred  of  him,  to  call  him  a 


STEIN  303 

Jacobin  reformer,  as  dangerous  to  Hapsburgs  and 
Hohenzollerns  as  the  French  Jacobins  had  been  to  the 
Bourbons. 

So  it  came  that,  while  the  German  monarchs,  their 
ministers,  and  their  favorites,  were  obliged  to  avail 
themselves  of  Stein's  vast  abilities  as  an  organizer,  they 
never  forgave  his  appeals  to  the  German  people  and  his 
efforts  to  uplift  them.  Even  during  the  days  after  the 
King  and  his  greatest  statesmen  were  once  more  nom- 
inally united,  his  Majesty  of  Prussia  took  pains  not  to 
invite  Stein  to  dinner;  and,  when  the  old  statesman  lay 
in  the  garret  of  a  hotel  at  Breslau,  apparently  at  the  point 
of  death  from  fever,  did  not  even  take  the  pains  to 
inquire  after  his  health,  or  even  to  send  him  a  kindly 
message. 

The  first  struggles  of  Prussia  and  Russia  against 
Napoleon  after  the  Moscow  collapse  resulted  doubtfully. 
Austria  and  Saxony  stood  aloof,  doing  everything  pos- 
sible to  bargain  with  Napoleon  at  the  expense  of  Prussia. 
The  most  amazing  offers  were  made  him  by  Austria  and 
her  allies,  if  he  would  give  up  his  idea  of  reestablishing 
the  empire  of  Charlemagne.  At  the  Treaty  of  Reichen- 
bach,  Austria  in  concert  with  Russia,  and,  indeed,  Prussia, 
offered  to  leave  him  at  the  head  of  an  empire  greater 
than  any  other  in  Europe  by  far, — an  empire  compris- 
ing France,  Italy,  Belgium,  Holland,  German  kingdoms 
and  principalities  on  the  Rhine,  and  much  beside.  But 
Napoleon  refused,  and  now  not  only  Russia  and  Prussia, 
but  Austria,  turned  against  him,  Great  Britain  aiding 
them  effectively.  The  world  was  weary  of  Napoleon's 
despotism,  and  in  1813  all  Germany  rose  in  alliance  with 
the  three  great  military  monarchies  on  the  continent 
outside  of  France.  Stein  and  those  who  wrought  with 
him  had  created  a  German  people;  Scharnhorst  had 
given  it  military  training ;  Arndt,  Schleiermacher,  Fichte, 
Jahn,  and  hundreds  of  others,  nay,  thousands  of  others, 


304  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

had  inspired  it  with  determination  to  conquer  or  die. 
Napoleon,  having  refused  the  very  moderate  terms  of 
Austria,  and  having  invaded  Germany  with  a  new  army, 
was  at  first  successful,  but  this  renewed  Germany  pressed 
on  against  him:  "the  battle  of  the  nations"  was  fought 
at  Leipsic,  and  the  end  began. 

To  unite  Europe  for  this  effort,  Stein  had  to  make  a 
great  sacrifice.  He  had  urged  on  Germany  a  levy  en 
masse;  but  the  Austrian  government  would  not  listen 
to  him.  For  there  was  still  dominant  the  old  fear  that 
the  people,  once  called  to  rise  against  the  French  Em- 
peror, might  learn  its  strength  and  rise  again  later 
against  the  Austrian  Emperor;  therefore  it  was  that 
Stein's  counsels,  just  at  the  moment  when  they  were 
most  valuable,  were  set  aside,  and  he  was  obliged  to  see 
the  lead  given  to  creatures  like  Metternich. 

But  while  the  allies  would  allow  him  no  place  where 
his  counsels  could  be  heard,  they  were  forced  to  give 
him  a  more  important  place  in  administration  than  any 
other  minister  had  ever  held  in  Europe.  They  created 
a  great  central  commission  to  administer  the  provinces 
of  Germany  outside  of  Prussia  and  Austria,  and  to 
restore  order  and  good  government  in  them  just  as  fast 
as  they  were  retaken  from  Napoleon.  At  the  head  of 
this  commission  they  placed  Stein.  His  administrative 
work  now  became  colossal;  he  was  even  nicknamed  "the 
German  Emperor";  indeed,  there  were  those  who 
seriously  proposed  to  restore  the  old  German  Empire 
and  place  him  permanently  at  its  head.  He  was  called 
upon,  not  only  to  govern  Central  Europe  and  France 
as  they  were  reconquered,  but  to  reorganize  all  this 
territory;  to  divide  it  into  manageable  provinces;  to 
appoint  its  rulers  and  counselors;  to  draw  from  it  sup- 
plies of  money  and  troops  for  the  allies;  and,  among 
ten  thousand  other  things,  to  care  for  those  wounded 
in  the  struggles  which  now  ensued,  of  whom  thirty-four 


STEIN  305 

thousand  were  left  on  Ms  hands  after  the  battle  of 
Leipsic. 

Reigning  princes  waited  in  his  ante-chamber,  but  the 
sturdy  old  baron  treated  them  with  scant  courtesy:  he 
could  never  conceal  his  contempt  for  most  of  them,  and, 
as  a  rule,  his  treatment  of  them  was  much  like  that 
which  Bismarck  gave  their  successors  fifty  years  later  at 
Versailles.  The  German  princelings  of  Stein's  time  had 
mainly  preferred  luxury  to  honor ;  had  shown  themselves 
ready  to  serve  Napoleon  or  the  allies,  as  might  be  for 
their  comfort  or  advantage:  Stein's  manly  dignity  per- 
meated all  his  thinking,  in  small  things  as  in  great;  a 
territorial  magnate  ranking  next  to  royalty,  the  Grand 
Duke  of  Weimar,  attempting  to  make  a  filthy  joke  in 
a  company  where  the  great  minister  was  present,  Stein 
rebuked  him  with  severity  and  directness.  All  present 
were  appalled  at  his  boldness,  but  his  "High  Trans- 
parency" of  Weimar  was  thereby  forced  to  change 
his  style.  On  another  occasion  a  lofty  personage 
whom  Stein  had  caused  to  be  thrown  into  prison  on 
account  of  fraud  in  dealings  with  the  government,  having 
obtained  a  pardon  of  the  King  and  come  to  Stein  in 
order  to  show  the  pardon  to  him,  Stein  drove  him  forth 
from  the  house  with  his  uplifted  stick.  At  a  dinner  in 
Berlin,  a  great  noble  whose  name  was  soiled  with 
scoundrelism  being  announced,  Stein,  in  spite  of  all 
remonstrance,  left  the  house,  declaring  that  he  would 
never  sit  under  the  same  roof  with  such  a  creature. 

Outside  of  Austria  and  Prussia,  his  nickname  of 
"Emperor"  was,  during  that  period,  the  expression  of 
a  reality.  New  dangers  arose.  Napoleon's  heir  was 
the  Austrian  Emperor's  grandson,  and  at  various  times 
Austria  showed  a  willingness  to  preserve  Napoleon's 
sway  in  France,  restricting  him  within  her  natural  bound- 
aries, which  were  then  supposed  to  reach  to  the  Rhine ;  but 
Stein's  influence,  absent  though  he  was  from  the  central 


306  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

council  which  seemed  to  control  policies  in  those  days, 
constantly  kept  the  Emperor  Alexander  firm  against  all 
this,  and,  when  Paris  was  at  last  taken  by  the  allies,  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  no  other  man  had  done 
more  to  promote  this  result.  Yet  no  great  man  at  that 
period  was  mentioned  so  little :  Europe  resounded  with 
the  names  of  the  three  monarchs,  of  Metternich,  and  of 
Talleyrand,  but  this  sturdy  old  statesman,  infinitely 
higher  in  character  and  in  service  than  any  other,  was 
hardly  ever  heard  of. 

Afterward,  indeed,  as  thinking  men  and  impartial  his- 
torians reflected  upon  the  events  of  that  great  period, 
justice  began  to  be  done  him.  Well  does  one  of  the 
greatest  of  modern  jurists  declare,  in  words  carefully 
weighed,  that  "the  heroic  determination  in  1812  and  '13 
to  bring  a  victorious  Russian  army  from  the  frontier 
to  unite  it  with  the  unchained  might  of  the  German  peo- 
ple, to  push  it,  with  the  rejuvenated  Prussian  army, 
toward  the  West,  and  by  these  and  the  allied  armies  to 
drive  Napoleon  from  position  to  position  and  out  of 
Germany  was  the  work  of  a  genius :  for  history  it  is 
no  longer  a  secret  that  the  genius  which  brought  this 
expedition  of  Alexander  from  the  boundaries  of  Siberia 
to  the  hill  of  Montmartre  was  the  genius  of  Baron  vom 
Stein.  Thereby  he  reached  the  summit  of  his  historical 
mission."  x 

At  the  Vienna  Congress,  which  followed  the  abdica- 
tion of  Napoleon,  Stein  exerted  himself  for  German 
unity  and  a  proper  position  for  Prussia,  and,  of  course, 
was  opposed  by  Metternich,  Talleyrand,  and  all  states- 
men of  their  sort.  At  Napoleon's  return  from  Elba, 
Stein's  voice  was  potent  among  those  who  put  him  under 
the  ban,  and,  at  last,  ended  his  career.  During  the  whole 
Vienna  Congress  Stein  labored  on  as  best  he  might  for 
a  substantial  German  unity  resting  upon  a  constitution ; 

i  See  Gneist,  Die  Denkschriften  des  Frciherm  vom  Stein. 


STEIN  307 

he  would  have  restored  the  German  Empire,  would  have 
introduced  deliberative  assemblies,  and  would  have 
brought  into  these  the  germs  of  something  very  different 
from  the  old  ''Holy  Eoman  Empire  of  the  German 
Nation,"  which  had,  indeed,  come  to  naught  before 
Napoleon  had  given  its  quietus.  But  Metternich  was 
too  firmly  seated,  and  the  influence  of  Austria  on  the 
petty  interest  of  the  lesser  German  princelings  was 
irresistible:  the  Federation  was  created,  which  dragged 
on  through  years  of  humiliating  politics,  until  it  was 
ended  by  Bismarck.  Stein  also  tried  to  have  Alsace- 
Lorraine  restored  to  Germany,  but  in  this  also  he  failed, 
and  it  was  reserved  for  Bismarck  to  realize  his  idea,  at 
the  cost  of  myriads  of  precious  German  lives,  half  a 
century  later. 

French  tyranny  having  at  last  been  driven  from  Ger- 
many, Stein  was  no  longer  listened  to,  and  retired  from 
politics, — regretting  the  great  work  left  undone,  but 
happy  in  the  great  work  done ;  seeing  clearly  that  serious 
evils  were  to  follow  from  the  reaction,  but  with  a  calm 
faith  that  better  counsels  would  finally  prevail.  To  the 
end  of  his  life,  he  continued  to  maintain  that  same 
independence  and  fearlessness  which  led  Scharnhorst  to 
say  that  Stein  and  Bliicher  were  the  only  two  men  he 
had  ever  met  who  feared  no  human  being.  One  high 
position  was  indeed  offered  him  by  Prussia, — that  of 
its  delegate  to  the  Frankfort  Diet;  but  his  strong  good 
sense  forbade  him  to  accept  it:  he  saw  that  with  reac- 
tionary forces  then  dominant,  and  especially  in  view  of 
Austrian  jealousy  of  Prussia,  no  further  progress  was 
at  that  time  to  be  made.  Instructive  is  it  to  reflect  that 
in  this  position,  which  Stein  refused,  Bismarck  first  gave 
to  the  world  an  earnest  of  the  powers  by  which,  finally, 
he  was  to  acquire  for  a  new  German  Empire  those  prov- 
inces of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  which  Stein  had  sought  ta 
restore  to  the  old  Empire. 


308  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Another  tribute  to  the  old  statesman  seems  strange 
indeed.  It  was  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  testimonies 
to  his  character  and  ability,  for  it  was  nothing  less  than 
an  offer  of  the  presidency  of  the  German  Diet  at  Frank- 
fort; and,  of  all  men  in  the  world,  it  came  from  the  man 
who  had  been  his  most  troublesome  German  enemy, — 
Metternich.  Needless  to  say  that  Stein  declined  it,  as 
he  declined  various  other  honors  coming  from  sources 
which  he  distrusted.1 

To  the  end  of  his  days  he  remained  the  same  deter- 
mined hater  of  all  whom  he  thought  evil  or  unpatriotic, 
the  constant  friend  of  all  whom  he  considered  true  and 
intelligent  lovers  of  the  country.  His  old  house  near 
the  ruins  of  his  ancestral  castle  still  stands,  and  its  most 
interesting  feature  is  the  tower  which  he  attached  to  it 
as  a  monument  to  the  great  triumph  of  right  and  justice 
in  which  he  had  aided,  and  as  a  receptacle  for  the  por- 
traits and  other  memorials  of  men  who  had  stood  by 
Mm  in  the  great  war  for  German  freedom. 

Two  houses  has  the  present  writer  visited  which  have 
revealed  to  him  what  a  true  patriot,  cherishing  justice 
and  right  reason,  may  accomplish  even  when  apparently 
deprived  of  all  power.  The  first  of  these  is  this  old 
house  of  Stein  at  Nassau.  From  it,  in  his  latter  days, 
went  forth  his  letters  to  Von  Gagern  and  others  who 
were  leading  in  the  struggle  for  right  reason  in  Germany. 
The  other  is  the  house  at  Monticello  from  which  Thomas 
Jefferson,  during  the  long  years  after  he  had  laid  down 
official  power,  sent  forth  to  James  Madison  and  others 
those  letters  which  did  so  much  for  right  reason  in  the 
United  States. 

There  was  much  to  stimulate  these  final  efforts  of 
Stein.     King  Frederick  William  III  of  Prussia,  in  his 

i  For  Metternich's  offer,  see  Seeley,  vol.  ii,  pp.  409,  410,  where  will  be 
found  also  a  most  curious  letter  from  Metternich  to  Von  Gagern,  written 
after  Stein's  death  and  containing  a  remarkable  tribute  to  him. 


STEIN  309 

time  of  trouble,  had  given  a  solemn  promise  to  establish 
a  constitutional  government;  but,  when  peace  and  pros- 
perity returned,  reaction  set  in,  and  the  royal  advisers, 
entangling  him  in  sophisms,  led  him  virtually  to  break 
his  word.  Against  this  line  of  action  Stein  wrote  con- 
stantly and  earnestly.  The  assassination  of  Kotzebue 
by  Sand  aided  reaction,  as  assassinations  generally  do; 
but  Stein  remained  moderate  and  liberal,  still  urging  a 
constitution  and  representation  for  Prussia,  with  a  be- 
ginning, at  least,  of  free  institutions  in  Germany.  He 
was  not,  indeed,  a  liberal  in  the  modern  sense.  The  con- 
stitution which  he  then  urged  would  have  been  monarchic 
and  aristocratic;  but  embedded  in  it  would  have  been 
provision  for  a  large  representation  of  the  people,  and 
in  this  would  have  been  germs  sure  to  develop  into  a  far 
broader  system  of  self-government.  He  was  no  "fool 
reformer."  He  knew  how  to  estimate  the  facts  and  pos- 
sibilities about  him.  He  did  not  expect  fruit  on  the  day 
the  tree  was  planted;  enough  for  him  to  plant  a  good 
tree — sure  to  bear  good  fruit. 

It  became  clear  to  him  that  his  counsels  were,  during 
his  time,  not  to  be  followed,  and  he  returned  in  his  last 
years  mainly  to  historical  studies.  But  he  found  im- 
portant sources  inaccessible,  and  so  came  into  his  mind 
the  idea  of  establishing  a  society  to  care  for  the  records 
of  the  German  past,  to  rescue  these  precious  documents 
of  history,  and  to  preserve  them  from  oblivion  by  pub- 
lishing them.  Thus  was  begun  by  German  scholarship, 
some  years  before  the  death  of  Stein,  the  publication  of 
the  greatest  historical  work  which  any  nation  has  ever 
undertaken,  the  Monumenta  Germanics;  to  this  he  sub- 
scribed a  sum  very  large  in  proportion  to  his  modest  for- 
tune, and  from  1819  to  the  present  hour  this  great  work 
has  been  continued,  in  furtherance  not  only  of  scholarly 
research,  but  of  German  patriotism.1 

i  For  a  full  and  interesting  statement  of  the  worth  of  the  work  upon 


310  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Although  he  had  resigned  all  hopes  of  leadership  in 
German  or  Prussian  counsels,  and  indeed,  in  view  of  the 
limitations  imposed  by  men  then  dominant,  all  wish  for 
leadership,  he  was,  from  time  to  time,  called  upon  to 
make  important  reports  and  to  give  weighty  counsels; 
and  in  one  of  these,  to  the  Crown  Prince,  afterward 
King  Frederick  William  IV  of  Prussia,  the  old  states- 
man made  an  admirable  argument  for  provincial  insti- 
tutions and  administration,  as  opposed  to  a  centralized 
bureaucracy.  Even  in  his  modest  dwelling,  so  remote 
from  courtiers  and  men  temporarily  great,  he  never 
ceased  to  serve  his  country,  and  in  his  last  years  he  took 
a  useful  part  in  the  deliberations  of  the  states  of  West- 
phalia. 

His  religion  was  simple  and  manly.  As  his  eminent 
English  biographer  remarks,  " There  is  no  cowering,  no 
terror,  no  fear  of  the  future.  Everything  that  relates  to 
the  saving  of  the  soul  is  absent."  He  was  a  sincere 
Christian  and  took  it  for  granted  that  if  his  soul  was 
worth  saving  it  would  be  saved.  On  the  29th  of  June, 
1831,  he  died — died  as  he  had  lived,  a  great,  true,  Chris- 
tian man;  not  what  is  usually  called  a  philanthropist, 
not  a  partisan,  not  the  banner-bearer  of  any  momentary 
outburst  of  sentiment,  but  a  clear-headed,  strong-hearted 
laborer  for  right  and  justice  as  the  foundations  of  na- 
tional greatness. 

As  a  legacy  to  the  German  people,  and  indeed  to  man- 
kind, he  left  the  record  of  his  labors ;  but,  even  more  ef- 
fective than  this  record,  the  remembrance  of  his  charac- 
ter. Perhaps  in  no  human  being  save  our  own  Washing- 
ton has  the  value  of  character  as  a  great  force,  not  to 
be  described  but  to  be  felt,  been  proved  so  quietly  yet 
so  evidently.  The  same  great  jurist  who  in  carefully 
measured  terms  has  shown  us  that  to  Stein,  more  than 

the    Monumenta    Germanice    in    training    eminent    German    historians,    see 
Paulsen,  Die  Deutschen   Vniversitdten,  pp.   67,   70. 


STEIN  311 

to  any  other  German,  and,  indeed,  more  than  to  any 
other  man,  was  due  the  final  removal  of  the  Napoleonic 
incubus  from  Europe,  speaks  of  Stein  as  follows:  "His 
greatest  service  in  the  reform  of  the  administration  was 
derived  from  his  high  character  and  his  morally  clean, 
unselfish,  experienced,  and  forceful  convictions.  This 
carried  his  measures  against  the  opposition  of  the  pro- 
vincial nobility  and  the  great  body  of  courtiers.  Even 
Frederick  William  III  had  accepted  Stein's  ideas  before 
Jena,  but  his  adhesion  to  these  ideas,  when  they  were  car- 
ried out,  was  due  to  his  trust  in  Stein,  a  trust  which 
Hardenberg  could  not  arouse."  1 

No  less  due  to  his  character  was  the  confidence  which 
led  the  autocrat  of  all  the  Eussias  to  confide  in  him 
against  all  the  power  and  all  the  temptations  of  Napo- 
leon, and  which  caused  the  leaders  of  Europe,  even 
though  distrusting  Stein's  belief  in  popular  rights,  to 
unite  against  the  universal  tyrant.  More  than  to  any 
other,  the  ideas  which  began  the  new  Germany  were  due 
to  this  quiet,  strong,  faithful,  persistent,  self-respecting 
statesman,  and  they  were  due  him  by  virtue  of  one  of  the 
noblest  characters  which  human  annals  can  show. 

The  old  state  servant  was  buried  near  the  rock  from 
which  he  had  taken  his  name.  Over  his  grave  was  writ- 
ten an  epitaph  as  follows: — 

HEINRICH  FRIEDRICH  KARL,  IMPERIAL  BARON  VOM. 
UND  ZUM  STEIN, 

born  October  27th,  1757, 

died  June  29th,  1831, 

lies  here: 

The  last  of  his  knightly  race,  which  had  ruled 

on  the  Lahn  for  seven  hundred  years ; 
Humble  before  God,  high-hearted  before  men, 
an  enemy  of  untruth  and  of  injustice, 
*  See  Gneist,  as  above,  p.  16. 


312         SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

highly  gifted  in  truth  and  honor, 

unshaken  in  proscription  and  exile, 

the  yielding  Fatherland's  unyielding  son, 

in  battle  and  in  victory  a  soldier  for  German 

freedom. 

"I  have  a  desire  to  depart 

and  to  be  with  Christ."  x 

Some  forty  years  later,  at  that  old  rock,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  leading  statesmen,  thinkers,  historians,  and  poets 
of  Germany,  and  among  them  the  King  of  Prussia,  who, 
now  that  Stein's  main  ideas  had  at  last  done  their  work, 
had  become  the  Emperor  of  a  united  Germany,  there  was 
unveiled  a  statue  of  the  great  statesman;  and  upon  its 
base  was  the  old  well-known  play  upon  his  name  which 
had  long  before  been  a  popular  saying:  "Des  gat  en 
Grundstein ;  des  Bosen  Eckstein;  der  deutschen  Edel- 
stein  (A  corner-stone  of  goodness ;  a  stumbling-stone  for 
evil;  a  precious  stone  to  Germany)." 

Suitable  honor  was  also  done  him,  at  last,  in  the  cap- 
ital of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  destined  to  become  the 
metropolis  of  the  German  Empire.  In  front  of  the  pal- 
ace of  the  Prussian  legislature  stands,  in  bronze,  a  noble 
monument  by  perhaps  the  greatest  of  modern  German 
sculptors.  It  represents  Stein  at  his  best — firm,  four- 
square to  all  the  winds  that  blow.  About  him  stand 
colossal  statues  typifying  the  virtues  which  he  summoned 
to  the  uplifting  of  his  country,  and  about  the  base  are 
sculptured  a  series  of  the  greatest  scenes  in  that  life  by 
which  he  wrought  so  powerfully  to  save  Prussia,  Ger- 
many, and  European  civilization. 

Nor  was  this  all.  These  two  monuments  had  been 
erected  under  Frederick  William  IV  and  William  I,  two 
sons  of  Frederick  William  III;  but  it  was  reserved  to  the 

i  For  the  translation  given  by  Seeley,  the  present  writer  has  substi- 
tuted the  above,  taken  down  on  the  spot,  which  seems  in  some  particulars 
more  exact. 


STEIN  313 

great-grandson  of  the  ungrateful  sovereign  to  erect  a 
final  memorial.  For,  in  these  later  days,  the  present 
Prussian  King  and  German  Emperor,  William  II,  having 
given  to  the  city  of  Berlin  the  long  line  of  statues  on 
either  side  of  the  Avenue  of  Victory,  which  represent  the 
succession  of  princes — thirty-three  in  all — who  have 
ruled  his  territory  during  the  past  thousand  years,  each  of 
these  sovereigns  having  on  either  side  colossal  busts 
in  marble  of  the  men  who  did  most  to  strengthen  his 
reign — he  has  placed  at  the  side  of  the  statue  represent- 
ing Frederick  William  III  the  bust  of  the  great  states- 
man to  whom  that  King  owed  so  much  and  gave  so  little. 

But,  better  than  monuments  of  marble  and  bronze, 
better  than  eulogies  which  the  foremost  German  orators 
have  been  proud  to  deliver,  is  the  monument  which  will 
ever  stand  in  the  heart,  and  the  eulogy  which  will  ever 
rise  to  the  lips,  of  thoughtful  Germans  whenever  the  name 
of  Stein  shall  be  spoken. 

He  was  the  second,  in  point  of  time,  of  the  three 
great  German  statesmen  since  the  Eeformation.  The 
first  of  these  was  Thomasius,  mainly  a  publicist,  be- 
tween whom  and  the  other  two  it  is  impossible  to  make 
any  comparisons,  his  work  being  in  fields  and  by  methods 
so  utterly  different  from  theirs.  In  any  comparison 
between  the  latter  two,  the  world  at  large  will  doubt- 
less award  the  first  place  to  Bismarck.  His  work  was 
on  the  whole  more  amazing  and  his  triumph  more  im- 
pressive; but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  said  that 
Bismarck  had  at  his  command  forces  which  in  the  Free- 
dom War  against  Napoleon  were  wanting  to  Prussia,  and 
among  these  a  sovereign,  William  I,  standing  firmly  by 
him  from  first  to  last,  despite  all  intrigues  and  opposi- 
tion,— Moltke,  the  greatest  soldier  since  Napoleon, — 
Boon,  the  greatest  of  army  organizers, — an  immense 
army  in  the  most  perfect  condition, — and,  finally,  an  up- 
rising of  German  feeling  fully  equal  to  that  which  Stein 


314  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

had  done  so  much  to  arouse  against  the  Napoleonic 
tyranny. 

But  against  the  vast  and  impressive  victories  of  Bis- 
marck should  be  arrayed  the  fact  that  Stein's  work  was 
really  more  profound,  more  varied,  more  devoted  to  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  In  Bismarck's  work,  while 
there  is  at  times  a  foresight  and  force  almost  preternat- 
ural, there  is  nothing  which  shows  such  depth  of  philo- 
sophic insight  into  the  very  heart  of  modern  politics  as 
Stein's  idea  of  creating  self-respecting  men  out  of  down- 
trodden serfs,  self-respecting  citizens  out  of  despised 
burghers,  and  endowing  a  vast  nation  with  parliamentary 
institutions.  In  this  respect  Stein  is  the  superior  of 
Bismarck;  the  only  Europeans  who  have  equaled  him  in 
this  depth  of  thought  and  breadth  of  vision  as  regards 
the  foundations  of  modern  society  are  Turgot  and  Ca- 
vour. 

Moreover  the  characters  of  the  two  great  modern  Ger- 
mans present  striking  differences.  Both  could,  on  occa- 
sion, be  irritable,  and  even  overbearing;  both  could  be 
humorous,  witty,  and  even  fascinating;  but  as  regards 
straightforwardness,  directness,  and  respect  for  popular 
rights,  Bismarck  is  not  to  be  compared  with  Stein.  Nor 
is  there  anything  which  shows  in  Bismarck  such  wonder- 
ful powers  of  administration  as  those  which  Stein  exer- 
cised when,  in  the  rear  of  the  great  combined  armies  of 
the  allies,  he  organized  the  territories  as  they  were 
gained,  first  in  Germany,  and  then  throughout  France, 
gathering  troops,  raising  money,  caring  for  the  wounded, 
settling  vexed  questions  between  territorial  rulers,  and 
proving  himself  to  rank,  in  administration,  with  Caesar 
and  Napoleon.  It  must  also  be  confessed  with  some  re- 
gret that  the  final  years  of  Bismarck  were  infinitely  less 
worthy  of  a  great  man  than  were  those  of  Stein.  Quietly 
settled  upon  his  ancestral  estate  on  the  river  Lahn,  doing 
everything  possible  to  promote  quietly  the  better  develop- 


STEIN  315 

merit  of  Prussia  and  Germany,  dignified,  thoughtful,  ac- 
cepting neglect  without  complaint,  Stein  seems,  it  must 
be  confessed,  infinitely  more  dignified  than  Bismarck, 
who  displayed,  after  his  retirement,  defects  of  his  quali- 
ties over  which  those  who  admire  him  most  will  most 
gladly  draw  a  veil. 

While,  then,  Bismarck,  by  the  extent  of  his  work,  by  its 
variety,  by  the  evident  result  of  it  in  the  creation  of  the 
new  German  Empire,  and  by  its  boldly  dramatic  char- 
acter, will  long  be  exalted  in  the  popular  mind  as  the 
greater  statesman,  no  thinking  man  who  has  studied 
closely  the  decline  and  rise  of  Germany  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  can  fail  to  award  to  Stein  a  place  close 
beside  him — equal  as  regards  services  to  German  nation- 
ality, superior  as  regards  services  to  humanity. 


CAVOUB 


CAVOUR 


OF  all  great  prophecies  ever  made  to  a  credulous 
world,  the  most  futile  and  woeful  was  uttered 
toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  by  Aurelio 
Bertola. 

Having  visited  many  countries,  in  various  capacities — 
at  times  a  monk,  at  times  a  soldier,  at  times  a  man  of 
letters  and  "philosopher" — flitting  at  times  between  the 
lecture-rooms  of  two  renowned  universities — always  an 
optimistic  phrase-maker,  he  published  what  he  called,  A 
Philosophy  of  History,  and,  as  its  culmination,  summed 
up  the  condition  of  humanity  on  this  wise:  "The  polit- 
ical system  of  Europe  has  arrived  at  perfection.  An 
equilibrium  has  been  attained  which  henceforth  preserves 
peoples  from  subjugation.  Few  reforms  are  now  needed 
and  these  will  be  accomplished  peaceably.  Europe  has 
no  need  to  fear  a  revolution."  x 

And  this  in  1787 ! — the  year  in  which  the  French  As- 
sembly of  Notables  opened  the  greatest  era  of  revolution 
and  war  in  human  history — an  era  which  has  now  lasted 
over  a  century  and  which  still  continues ;  which,  between 
that  year  and  this,  has  seen  every  people  on  the  European 
continent  subjugated  by  foes  foreign  or  domestic,  every 
continental  dynasty  overturned  or  humiliated,  and  an 
infinite  number  of  liberties  crushed,  or  reforms  wrested, 
by  conspirators  or  soldiers;  an  era  which,  not  only  to 
every  European  nation,  but  to  America,  Asia,  and  Africa, 
has  brought  deluge  after  deluge  of  blood ;  which  is  black- 
ened by  thousands  of  battlefields,  and,  among  these,  by 

1  See  Cantil,  Hisfoire  des  Italiens,  vol.  xi,  p.  23;  also  vol.  x,  p.  449. 

319 


320  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Marengo,  Austerlitz,  and  Borodino,  by  Leipzig  and 
Waterloo,  by  the  Alma  and  Inkerrnan,  by  Magenta  and 
Solferino,  by  Antietam  and  Gettysburg,  by  Sadowa  and 
Plevna,  by  Gravelotte  and  Sedan ;  by  the  naval  slaughters 
of  the  Nile,  Trafalgar,  Navarino,  and  Sinope,  and  by 
the  Japanese  annihilation  of  Chinese  and  Russian  armies 
and  navies ;  by  the  storming  of  Badajoz,  of  the  Malakoff, 
and  of  Diippel ;  by  the  sieges  of  Genoa,  of  Saragossa,  of 
Sebastopol,  of  Paris,  and  of  Port  Arthur ;  by  thousands 
of  vast  and  bloody  encounters  besides,  costing  millions  of 
lives;  by  a  ghastly  series  of  massacres,  extending  from 
those  in  the  name  of  liberty,  in  1792,  to  those  in  the 
name  of  throne  and  altar,  in  1815,  and  from  those  of 
the  Commune,  in  1871,  to  those  throughout  Russia,  in 
1906 ;  by  scaffolds  innumerable,  and  by  the  remodeling  of 
every  European  nation,  save  Great  Britain — some  of 
them  twice  or  thrice. 

The  world  at  large,  which  loves  those  who  prophesy 
smooth  things,  took  this  utterance  of  Bertola  compla- 
cently. To  the  warning  of  a  very  different  tenor,  given 
by  Lord  Chesterfield,  it  gave  no  heed. 

Most  of  all  was  this  optimistic  prophecy  enjoyed  by 
Italians ;  for,  of  all  great  peoples,  they  had  most  reason 
to  long  for  a  future  better  than  their  past.  During 
more  than  a  thousand  years  Italy  had  been  trodden  down 
by  foreign  rulers  and  soldiers — Germans,  Saracens, 
Frenchmen,  and  Spaniards.  She  had  been  torn  also  by 
feuds  between  countless  tyrants  of  her  own ;  between  her 
city  republics;  between  classes;  between  demagogues — 
all  howling  for  "liberty"  or  "religion";  so  that,  despite 
her  vast  achievements  in  literature,  science,  and  art,  her 
people  had  sunk  more  and  more  into  superstition  and 
skepticism.  Their  main  reliance  was  apparently  upon 
such  helpers  as  St.  Januarius  at  Naples,  the  Bambino  at 
Rome,  St.  Antony  and  his  pigs  at  Padua,  Buddha — trans- 
formed  into   a   Christian   saint — at   Palermo,    and   ten 


CAVOUR  321 

thousand  fetiches  besides.  Faith  in  anything  worth  be- 
lieving was  mainly  gone.  The  mediaeval  city  liberties 
had  long  been  a  vague  remembrance.  The  utterances  of 
Dante  and  Michael  Angelo  were,  to  the  vast  mass,  as  if 
they  had  never  been.1 

Their  lay  rulers  were,  mainly,  frivolous  and  sensual, 
their  priestly  rulers  largely  bigoted  and  cruel,  their  no- 
bles given  to  futilities,  their  people  groveling  below 
these — ignorant  beyond  belief. 

But,  shortly  after  Bertola  wrote,  the  French  Revolu- 
tion made  itself  felt  in  Italy. 

It  raised  many  hopes,  and,  in  1796,  came  an  apostle 
from  whom  Italians  expected  much — Bonaparte — an 
Italian  who  never  spoke  French  until  out  of  his  boyhood ; 
and,  knowing  this,  Italy  saw  some  reason  for  believing 
in  him.  Bringing  his  army  over  the  Alps,  he  promised 
to  the  Italian  people  an  end  of  the  miseries  which  had 
been  accumulating  since  the  destruction  of  their  munici- 
pal liberties,  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  be- 
fore. He  pledged  to  them  the  fulfillment  of  their  wildest 
dreams — liberty,  fraternity,  prosperity,  glory.  Some  of 
these  promises  he  redeemed,  for  he  brought  better  ideas 
of  liberty  and  justice;  roads  along  which  better  ideas 
could  travel;  a  system  of  taxation,  which,  though  taking 
more  money  out  of  the  country  than  it  had  ever  yet  paid, 
was  better  than  any  it  had  ever  known  before.  He  re- 
duced some  fifteen  petty  despotisms  to  three,  cast  out 
Bourbon,  Papal,  and  Hapsburg  administration,  gave  bet- 

i  For  a  most  striking  and  convincing  revelation  of  the  complete  moral 
and  religious  debasement  of  Italian  life  during  the  "Ages  of  Faith,"  see 
From  St.  Francis  to  Dante,  by  G.  G.  Coulton,  London,  1906.  This  little 
book,  a  translation  of  all  that  is  of  primary  interest  in  the  Chronicle  of 
the  Franciscan  Salimbene,  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  contributions  to 
Mediaeval  History  and  to  sane  religious  thought  published  during  the  last 
twenty  years.  For  the  Italian  devotion  to  Buddha  as  St.  Giosafat,  the 
"St.  Rosalia  relics"  and  the  examination  of  them  by  Dr.  Buckland,  and 
the  Januarius  fetich,  see  A.  D.  White,  The  Warfare  of  Science  with 
Theology,  voL  ii,  chap.  xiii. 


322  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ter  laws,  scared  off  Jesuits,  discouraged  monks,  shot 
bandits,  restored  vigor  to  states  which  had  seemed  mere 
carcasses,  and,  best  of  all,  gave  an  impulse  to  the  idea 
of  Italy  as  a  nation.1 

But  at  his  downfall  Italy,  of  all  countries  with  which 
he  had  dealt,  was  left  the  most  abject  and  distraught. 
Liberty  he  had  never  given  it ;  he  had  played  with  Italian 
rights  as  suited  his  interest  or  fancy :  had  distributed  the 
whole  Italian  territory  as  his  private  estate;  had,  more 
than  once,  thrown  its  liberties  to  the  worst  enemies  Ital- 
ians had  ever  known.  While  affecting  veneration  for  the 
Republic  of  Venice  and  admiration  for  the  men  who  rep- 
resented it,  he  had  tossed  it  over  to  Austria  as  a  mere 
bagatelle  at  the  Treaty  of  Campo  Formio,  just  ten  years 
after  Bertola's  prophecy.  He  had  carved  out  of  Italian 
territories  a  kingdom  for  himself,  with  principalities  and 
dukedoms  for  his  family,  his  satraps,  and  his  courtiers, 
much  as  any  ordinary  brigand  might  have  distributed 
the  plunder  of  a  petty  village.  Works  of  art  which  were 
to  Italians  the  proudest  trophies  of  their  past,  he  had 
sent  to  the  contemptible  Directory,  at  Paris.  He  had 
left  the  bones  of  Italian  youth  scattered  on  hundreds  of 
battlefields,  from  Madrid  to  Moscow.2 

i  For  a  remarkable  summary  of  Bonaparte's  methods  on  arriving  in 
Italy,  see  A.  Sorel,  UEurope  et  la  Revolution  Frangaise,  vol.  v,  pp.  198  and 
following. 

For  examples  showing  the  beneficial  side  of  the  Napoleonic  system  in. 
Italy,  see  Colletta,  History  of  Naples,  English  translation,  book  vi,  chaps, 
iii,  iv,  and  v. 

For  an  admirable  short  statement  regarding  the  good  and  evil  in  Bona- 
parte's dealings  with  Italy,  see  Lemmi,  Le  Origini  del  Risorgimrnto 
Italiano  (1789-1815),  Milan,  1906,  cap.  iv  and  v.  Also  Aurelio  Saffir 
Ricordi  e  Hcritti,  vol.  iv,  p.  394. 

2  Of  all  who  have  ever  unveiled  the  cynical  treatment  of  Italy  by  Napo- 
leon, and  especially  that  masterpiece  of  treachery,  the  Treaty  of  Campo 
Formio,  none  has  surpassed  Lanfrey,  in  his  Histoire  de  Napoldon.  See,, 
especially,  vol.  i,  chap.  ix.  The  number  of  Italian  soldiers  forced  into  the 
Napoleonic  wars  between  179G  and  1814,  Lemmi  gives  as  358,000,  and  the 
number  of  lives   lost  as    120,000.     The  losses   were  especially   fearful  in 


CAVOUR  323 

Hence  it  was  that,  when  after  his  treachery  in  Italy, 
his  infamy  in  Spain,  and  his  folly  in  Russia,  his  throne 
tottered  and  fell,  the  Italians  began  listening  to  the  Haps- 
burgs  and  Bourbons,  and  the  race  of  princelings  who 
returned  in  their  train  after  the  Peace  of  Vienna.  In 
the  anxiety  of  these  old  enslavers  to  recover  Italian  ter- 
ritory, their  pledges  were  as  splendid  as  any  Napoleon 
had  made ;  and  especially  alluring  were  their  promises  of 
liberties,  constitutions,  and  reasonable  government.  But 
they,  too,  as  soon  as  they  were  established,  forgot  all 
these  fine  pretenses,  and  the  old  despotism  of  the  days 
before  the  French  Revolution  settled  down  upon  the 
country  more  heavily  than  ever.  Throughout  the  whole 
peninsula  the  influence  of  Austria  now  became  supreme. 
The  highest  conceptions  then  applied  to  Italian  develop- 
ment were  those  of  the  Austrian  Emperor  Francis,  typ- 
ical of  which  was  his  announcement  to  sundry  delegates 
of  the  University  of  Padua  that  he  required  of  them  not 
enlightened  scholars  but  obedient  subjects.  Typical  of 
his  practice  was  his  command  to  the  jailers  of  Spielberg 
to  shorten  the  diet  of  his  Italian  prisoners  and  to  make 
them  feel  every  day — more  and  more — the  bitter  results 
of  their  patriotism. 

Acting  through  him  was  Metternich,  the  great  apostle 
of  reaction,  whose  contempt  for  Italian  independence  was 
expressed  in  his  famous  utterance,  "Italy  is  simply  a 
geographical  expression."  Back  of  both  was  the  Holy 
Alliance — especially  Russia  and  Austria.  Romanoffs, 
Hapsburgs,  and,  for  a  time,  Hohenzollerns  united  in  the 
effort  to  quench  instantly  in  Italy  every  spark  of  free- 
dom, every  beginning  of  constitutional  government — the 
Bourbons,  in  France,  Spain,  and  Naples,  applauding  and 
helping  them. 

At  the  northern  extremity  of  the  peninsula,  in  Lom- 

the  insane  Spanish  and  Russian  campaigns,  which  touched  no  conceivable 
interest  of  Italy. 


324  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

bardy  and  Venice,  Austria  had  established  a  kingdom 
peculiarly  her  own — honest  in  a  way,  but  brutally  stupid. 
All  traces  of  earlier  independence  and  liberties  were  up- 
rooted. The  reforms  of  Napoleon  were,  as  far  as  possi- 
ble, brought  to  naught,  and  from  Milan,  especially,  ra- 
diated the  new  gospel  of  Hapsburg  despotism;  its 
apostles  the  hierarchy  of  the  Church,  and  its  disciples  the 
whole  army  of  place-holders  and  pelf-seekers. 

Adjoining  this  territory,  on  the  northwest,  was  the 
realm  of  the  House  of  Savoy,  to  which  had  been  recently 
attached  the  Eepublic  of  Genoa.  Everything  like  con- 
stitutional liberty  was  blotted  out  from  this  territory  also. 
As  regards  education,  the  Church,  and  especially  the 
Jesuits,  were  given  complete  control;  but  in  one  thing 
this  Piedmontese  kingdom  was  vastly  superior  to  any 
other  part  of  Italy :  it  had  a  peasantry,  hardworking,  hon- 
est, and  conscientious;  a  nobility,  which,  though  often 
narrow-minded  and  even  bigoted,  was  self-respecting  and 
patriotic;  a  monarchy  differing  in  its  whole  spirit  from 
that  of  the  Hapsburgs  and  Bourbons;  for,  though  the 
royal  house  had  been,  and,  indeed,  remained  for  some 
years  after  its  restoration  by  the  Treaty  of  Vienna, 
bigoted  and  despotic,  it  was  straightforward  and  truth- 
ful, and,  therefore,  was  respected  by  its  subjects  as  Bour- 
bons and  Hapsburgs  had  not  been  for  ages.1 

Going  southward,  the  next  main  division  was  Tuscany 
— ruled  by  a  branch  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  but  this 
branch  the  best  in  all  Hapsburg  history.  Its  people 
were  hard-working  and  generally  contented;  its  beauty, 
its  fertility,  and  the  glories  of  the  arts  there  developed 
had  made  it,  for  several  generations,  the  most  attractive 
part  of  the  peninsula.    Its  rulers,  indeed,  resisted  every- 

i  For  statements  regarding  the  despotism  of  the  House  of  Savoy  during 
the  early  years  of  the  19th  century,  see  Stillman,  The  Union  of  Italy, 
chaps,  i,  ii,  and  iii;  and,  for  some  better  features,  Cantu,  Eistoire  des 
Italien8,  vols,  x  and  xi. 


CAVOUR  325 

thing  like  constitutional  government,  but  they  devoted 
themselves  to  the  welfare  of  their  subjects  paternally. 

Neighboring  Tuscany  were  a  number  of  small  states, 
like  Parma,  Lucca,  and  Modena,  governed  by  petty 
despots,  as  a  rule  Austrian  by  birth  or  education,  and 
among  these,  worst  of  all,  the  Duke  of  Modena,  Francis 

IV.  Even  in  that  bad  age  he  was  despised  and  abhorred 
for  his  cruel  cunning.  No  blacker  stain  rests  upon  the 
history  of  any  modern  man  than  his  treacherous  murder 
of  Giro  Menotti  and  the  patriots  who  had  trusted  in  the 
ducal  promises.1 

Next  southward,  among  the  main  divisions,  came  the 
States  of  the  Church,  ruled  from  the  early  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  by  men  of  little  force:  one  of  them, 
indeed,  Pius  VII,  beautiful  in  character  and  ennobled  by 
adversity ;  others,  like  Pius  VIII  and  Gregory  XVI,  nar- 
row and  intolerant.  As  to  moral  and  religious  traits 
they  were  lifted  by  the  spirit  of  their  time  far  above  the 
level  of  such  pontiffs  as  Sixtus  IV  and  Alexander  VI, 
but  as  to  ability  they  were  infinitely  below  such  as  Sixtus 

V,  and  Benedict  XIV,  and  Leo  XIII.  None  of  them 
were  strong  enough  to  make  headway  against  the  polit- 
ical absurdities  that  had  been  so  long  developing  through- 
out their  dominions.  To  each  and  all  of  them  anything 
like  constitutional  government  was  unthinkable.  None 
knew  any  way  of  governing  save  by  despotism,  and  just 
as  little  could  any  one  of  them  think  of  conceding  any 
effective  part  in  administration  to  laymen.  All  rule 
must  be  entrusted  to  priests — and  these,  the  Monsignori, 
mostly  young  ecclesiastics,  who  had  won  their  way  by 
family  connection,  or  old  ecclesiastics,  cynical  and  slug- 
gish; some,  indeed,  well  intentioned,  but,  for  the  most 
part,  giving  the  cities  they  ruled  governments  as  degrad- 

i  For  details  of  this  episode,  so  frightful  but  so  instructive,  see  N. 
Bianchi,  I  Ducati  Estensi,  etc.,  Turin,  1852;  also  Gualterio,  Oli  Ultimi 
Rivolgimenti  Italiani,  Florence,  1852. 


326  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ing  as  any  that  modern  civilization  has  known — save, 
possibly,  those  to  be  seen  in  our  own  day  in  some  of  our 
American  municipalities.  To  the  whole  Napoleonic  tra- 
dition of  public  works  they  were,  as  a  rule,  invincibly 
opposed.  When  railways  came,  these  functionaries,  from 
the  Pope  downward,  mainly  abhorred  them :  for  they  saw 
but  too  well  what  Buckle  afterward  stated,  that  better 
systems  of  internal  communication  bring  in  new  ideas. 
So  bad  was  their  government,  in  all  its  practical  details, 
that  even  Austria  remonstrated,  and  Metternich  com- 
plained, "The  Papal  Government  cannot  govern." 

Last  of  all  came,  at  the  southern  end  of  the  peninsula, 
the  Kingdom  of  Naples,  or,  as  it  was  known  after  the 
Peace  of  Vienna,  the  Kingdom  of  the  Two  Sicilies.  In 
no  part  of  Europe  was  the  whole  life  of  the  people  so 
degraded.  The  Roman  states  were  possibly  more  wretch- 
edly administered,  but  the  popes  who  ruled  them  had 
been,  since  the  Renaissance  period,  at  least  outwardly 
decent.  Not  so  the  Bourbons  who  ruled  at  Naples. 
Throughout  their  entire  dominion  crime  was  rampant 
and  murder  almost  as  easy  and  carelessly  treated  as  it 
is  to-day  in  many  of  the  states  of  our  American  Republic. 
The  ignorance  of  the  country  was  beyond  that  of  any 
other  which  called  itself  civilized,  save  Russia.  The 
court  was  the  lowest,  as  regarded  morality,  in  Europe; 
the  palace,  under  the  lead  of  the  Hapsburg  Queen  Mary 
Caroline,  hardly  better  than  a  brothel;  the  vileness  of 
the  Neapolitan  populace  proverbial. 

The  same  city  mobs  which  had  committed  every  sort 
of  cruelty,  a  few  years  before,  in  the  name  of  liberty, 
had,  at  the  return  of  the  Bourbons,  with  the  connivance 
of  the  Queen  and  under  the  lead  of  the  Cardinal-Arch- 
bishop RufTo,  committed  even  worse  crimes  in  the  name 
of  religion.  Noble  and  thoughtful  men,  here  and  there 
in  Naples,  as  in  every  part  of  Italy,  strove  to  better  this 
condition  of  things,  but,  by  doing  so,  immediately  fell 


CAVOUR  327 

under  the  ban  of  the  court,  lost  all  chance  of  promotion, 
and  were  fortunate  if  they  escaped  imprisonment  or  even 
death.  On  the  other  hand,  spendthrifts  and  rakes,  being 
considered  not  likely  to  conspire  against  the  government, 
received  the  honors.  The  Neapolitan  Bourbons  also,  like 
the  popes,  discouraged  all  public  improvements  of  a  sort 
likely  to  promote  the  circulation  of  ideas;  and,  several 
years  after  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when 
Great  Britain  and  Northern  Europe  generally  were  al- 
ready enjoying  extensive  railway  systems,  there  was 
hardly  a  mile  of  railway  in  the  whole  peninsula  south  of 
Genoa.1 

To  maintain  this  state  of  things,  popular  education 
was,  throughout  Italy,  systematically  discouraged.  In 
Naples  and  Rome  there  was  virtually  no  provision  for 
the  education  of  the  people  at  large,  and  even  in  Turin, 
the  capital  of  the  most  enlightened  of  all  the  Italian 
states,  Piedmont,  there  were,  as  late  as  1846,  only  fifteen 
hundred  children  in  the  public  schools,  in  which  to-day 
there  are  over  thirty  thousand.  How  dense  popular  igno- 
rance thus  became  may  be  judged  from  an  official  report 
published  as  late  as  1873,  with  a  careful  map  giving  the 
percentages  of  popular  education  in  all  parts  of  Italy. 
In  the  most  enlightened  regions  the  number  of  those  who 
could  neither  read  nor  write  was  from  forty  to  fifty  per 
cent,  but,  in  the  greater  portion  of  the  country  the  num- 
ber of  illiterates  far  exceeded  this,  until,  in  the  States  of 
the  Pope,  it  reached  from  seventy-five  to  eighty-five  per 
cent,  and,  in  Naples  and  Sicily,  above  eighty-five  per  cent. 

i  The  statement  regarding  railways  is  based  upon  observations  made  in 
Italy  by  the  present  writer  in  185G,  when  things  were  little  if  any  better. 
For  the  character  of  the  Italian  governments  at  the  outbreak  of  the  French 
Revolution  and  afterward,  see  Sorel,  L'Europe  et  la  Revolution  Frangaise, 
vol.  i,  livre  iii,  chap,  iv;  and  especially,  for  the  Neapolitan  Court,  see  pp. 
386  and  following.  For  the  cruelties  during  the  reaction,  see  Colletta, 
book  v,  chap,  i,  and  book  viii,  chap,  i,  and  especially  Sorel  as  above,  vol. 
v,  pp.  421  and  following.  Also  Lemmi,  Le  Origini  del  Risorgimento 
Italiano. 


328  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Such  was  the  intellectual  condition  of  the  people  after 
their  education  had  been  cared  for  by  the  Church  during 
nearly  two  thousand  years.1 

The  higher  education  had  been  reduced  by  the  same 
influences  as  nearly  to  nothing  as  public  opinion  would 
permit.  The  warning  of  Kaiser  Franz  to  the  Pavia  pro- 
fessors was  enforced  to  the  letter.  The  Jesuits,  who  had 
been  expelled  by  Clement  XIV,  and  by  various  sovereigns 
of  Europe,  half  a  century  before,  were,  in  1814,  read- 
mitted by  Pius  VII,  and  speedily  secured  control  of 
higher  schools  and  universities.  These  institutions  had 
been  among  the  greatest  glories  of  Italy.  They  had,  in- 
deed, been  interfered  with  by  the  Church,  at  former 
periods,  in  various  ways,  notably  in  the  days  when  Gali- 
leo tried  to  teach  astronomy  and  physics  at  Pisa  and 
Florence.  Under  control  of  local  governments  not  es- 
pecially in  fear  of  the  Church  or  of  revolution,  there  was 
then  some  liberty.  But  all  higher  teaching  was  now  more 
and  more  alloyed  with  Jesuitism  and  directed  by  the 
bishops  and  the  Vatican.  Sundry  studies — Latin,  mathe- 
matics, scraps  of  Greek,  a  little  rhetoric,  and  concoctions 
of  a  suitable  philosophy — were  taught  with  skill.  Man- 
ners also  were  attended  to:  as  late  as  1883,  an  Italian 
marquis  at  Milan  informed  the  present  writer  that  he 
sent  his  sons  to  the  Jesuits  "because  they  teach  a  young 
man  how  to  enter  a  room."  But  studies  which  taught 
men  to  think,  and,  above  all,  history,  political  economy, 

1  For  the  condition  of  general  education  in  Italy  before  the  establishment 
of  the  Italian  Kingdom,  see  L'ltalia  Economica,  vol.  ii  (Tavole),  Rome, 
1873, — map  entitled  "Numero  degli  Analfabeti."  For  various  striking 
facts  showing  the  studied  neglect  of  education  in  the  period  before  CavoUT 
came,  see  F.  X.  Kraus,  in  Weltgcschichte  in  Karacterbildem  (Cavour), 
Mainz,  1902,  final  chapters.  For  very  interesting  comparisons  between 
the  educational  system  above  referred  to  and  that  of  the  present  time,  see 
King  and  Okey,  Italy  To-day,  p.  234  (London,  1001).  For  exact  state- 
ments regarding  education  in  Turin  in  1905-0G,  I  am  indebted  to  Pro- 
fessor Dr.  Peroni,  of  the  university  in  that  city,  formerly  a  Member  of 
Parliament. 


CAVOUR  329 

and  the  like,  were  reduced  to  nothing.  History,  indeed, 
was  apparently  taught,  but  it  was  absurdly  and  comically 
distorted  to  meet  the  needs  of  theology  and  ecclesias- 
ticism.  Research  in  science,  in  spite  of  the  great  achieve- 
ments in  this  field  by  Italians,  was  more  and  more  dis- 
couraged, and  the  reading  of  Dante  and  other  great 
writers  who  might  suggest  ideas  of  Italian  nationality 
was,  in  many  places,  forbidden. 

In  the  Kingdom  of  Naples  all  this  was  at  the  worst. 
Among  the  multitude  of  repressive  measures,  King 
Ferdinand  II  issued,  in  October,  1849,  two  edicts 
relating  to  education:  the  first  required  all  who  sought 
to  be  masters  in  teaching  any  science  to  undergo  an  ex- 
amination in  the  Greater  Catechism  and  to  answer  ques- 
tions in  the  presence  of  the  royal  theological  faculty  on 
the  relation  of  Christian  doctrine,  as  taught  in  the  Cate- 
chism, to  the  science  which  they  proposed  to  teach. 

A  month  later  came  another  edict  on  the  qualifications 
of  students.  In  Naples  and  in  each  provincial  city  was 
established  a  commission  "made  up  of  four  priests  and 
a  commissary  of  police"  who  should  see  to  it  that  all 
students  take  satisfactory  religious  instruction.  Stu- 
dents not  conforming  were  to  be  taken  back  to  their 
homes  by  the  police,  and  all  directors  and  masters  neg- 
lecting to  put  the  rule  in  force  were  to  be  excluded  from 
the  schools.  The  university  continued  to  exist  and 
strong  men  occasionally  arose  in  it,  but,  as  a  rule,  its 
best  professors  were  humiliated,  and  finally,  for  utter- 
ances which,  in  these  days,  would  be  thought  harmless, 
imprisoned  or  set  at  work  in  the  chain-gang.  To  keep 
out  the  higher  thought  and  scholarship,  there  was  issued 
a  Neapolitan  edition  of  the  Roman  Index. 

In  Tuscany  things  were  better;  for  in  that  state  lin- 
gered traditions  of  culture  which  could  not  be  put  down 
by  papal  fulminations  or  even  by  Austrian  armies. 

In  the  Papal  States  the  repression  of  thought  was  car- 


330  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ried  out  logically.  At  the  University  of  Bologna,  once 
a  great  centre  of  enlightenment,  the  dangers  of  research 
or  publication  of  thought  were  warded  off  most  care- 
fully :  any  book,  before  it  could  be  printed,  must  run  the 
gauntlet  of  no  less  than  seven  censorships ;  it  must  have 
the  approval,  first  of  the  literary  censor,  secondly  of  the 
ecclesiastical  censor,  thirdly  of  the  political  censor, 
fourthly  of  the  Inquisition,  fifthly  of  the  archbishop, 
sixthly  of  the  police,  and  seventhly  a  second  verifica- 
tion by  the  Inquisition.1 

Rome,  too,  as  the  spiritual  centre  of  Italy  and  of  the 
world,  continued  to  issue  the  Index,  which  forbade  the 
reading  of  nearly  all  books  which  represented  any  tri- 
umph of  modern  thought,  and  among  them  those  of  Gali- 
leo, supporting  the  movement  of  the  earth  around  the 
sun,  and  of  Grotius,  supporting  arbitration.  Even  as 
late  as  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when 
Beccaria,  a  deeply  religious  churchman,  wrote  his  great 
work  On  Crimes  and  Punishments,  reasonable  and  mild 
to  a  fault,  but  taking  ground  against  torture  in  procedure 
and  penalty,  that,  too,  was  placed  upon  the  Index  of 
books  forbidden  to  Christians,  and  to  this  decision  in- 
fallibility was  guaranteed  by  a  Bull  signed  by  the  reign- 
ing pontiff.  As  regarded  the  Italian  people  at  large, 
most  things  which  reminded  them  of  anything  higher 
than  futilities  seemed  forbidden.  Typical  was  the  fact 
that,  when  the  opera  "I  Puritani"  was  given,  the  word 
"loyalty"  was  substituted  for  the  word  "liberty,"  and 

i  For  striking  examples  of  this  debasement  of  higher  education  in  Italy, 
see  F.  X.  Kraus,  a  Catholic  author,  as  above,  citing  especially  Minghetti's 
Memoirs.  A  special  Neapolitan  Index,  of  which  a  copy  is  in  the  Cor- 
nell library,  was  published  at  Naples,  in  1853.  For  tbe  system  re- 
pressing publication  at  Bologna,  see  Minghetti,  cited  in  Kraus,  Welt- 
geschichte  in  Karacterbildem  (Cavour),  p.  18.  For  copies  of  Edicts  of 
King  Ferdinand  II  of  Naples,  1840,  requiring  instructors  and  pupils  to 
be  examined  on  the  Catechism  by  four  priests  and  a  policeman,  see  Zini, 
Storia  d'ltalia,  vol.  ii,  pt.  i,  pp.  164-166. 


CAVOUR  331 

a  singer  who  happened  to  forget  this  was  imprisoned. 
The  word  "Italy"  was  as  much  hated  as  the  word  "lib- 
erty"— school  children  were  at  times  punished  for  using 
it,  and  the  word  "Ausonia"  was  frequently  substituted 
for  it. 

Nor  was  this  all.  The  action  of  the  various  govern- 
ments was  not  merely  negative  but  positive.  Patriotism 
and  even  the  principles  of  morality  underlying  it  were 
to  be  extirpated.  For  this  purpose  there  were  prepared 
political  catechisms,  and  these  were  taught  in  the  schools 
in  the  name  of  religion.  One  of  these,  issued  from 
Milan,  in  1834,  by  the  Austrian  government,  entitled 
Duties  of  Subjects  toward  their  Sovereign,  contained 
things  like  the  following : — 

"Question:  How  should  subjects  behave  toward  their 
sovereign?" 

"Answer:  Subjects  should  behave  like  faithful  slaves 
(servi)  toward  their  master." 

"Question:  Why  should  subjects  behave  like  slaves 
(servi) !" 

"Answer:  Because  the  sovereign  is  their  master  and 
has  power  both  over  their  possessions  and  over  their 
lives." 

1 '  Question :  How  does  God  punish  soldiers  who  forsake 
their  lawful  sovereign ! ' ' 

"Answer:  By  sickness,  want,  and  eternal  damnation."  * 

Most  famous  of  all  these  catechisms  was  that  prepared 
by  Monaldo  Leopardi — father  of  the  poet-patriot  who 
afterward  wrought  so  powerfully  for  free  thought  in 
Italy.  This  catechism  was  enforced  especially  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Naples,  being  republished  by  Archbishop 
Apuzzo  of  Sorrento,  the  tutor  chosen  by  King  Ferdinand 
II  for  his  successor  Francis  II,  better  known  as  "King 
Bombino."     The    Neapolitan    edition    was    entitled,    A 

i  See  Probyn,  History  of  Italy  from  1815  to  1890,  p.  46,  and  F.  X.  Kraus, 
in  the  Weltgeschichte  in  Karacterbildern,  as  above. 


332  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Philosophical  Catechism  addressed  to  Princes,  Bishops, 
Magistrates,  Teachers  of  Youth,  and  to  all  Men  of  Good 
Will,  and  it  remains  one  of  the  most  precious  monuments 
of  the  counter-revolutionary  reaction.  Its  main  effort 
was  nothing  less  than  an  attempt  to  root  out  from  the 
mind  of  a  whole  people  all  that  the  modern  world  knows 
as  patriotism,  right  reason,  justice,  and  civic  morality. 

The  first  chapter  is  entitled  "Philosophy,"  and,  after 
a  diatribe  against  modern  philosophers  in  general,  it 
winds  up  with  the  following  touching  question  by  "The 
Disciple  " :  "  Do  all  such  persons  wear  beards  and  mous- 
taches?"— to  which  "The  Master"  answers  that,  while 
wearing  beard  and  moustache  is  not  necessarily  evil,  it 
is  to  be  regarded  with  suspicion. 

The  third  chapter  is  entitled,  "Liberty."  The  first 
part  of  the  dialogue  runs  as  follows : — 

"Disciple:  Is  it  true  that  all  men  are  born  free?" 

' '  Master :  It  is  not  true,  and  this  lie  regarding  liberty 
is  only  one  more  piece  of  deceit  that  modern  philosophers 
use  in  order  to  seduce  people  and  upset  the  world." 

The  fifth  chapter  is  devoted  to  "The  Eights  of  Man," 
and  in  it  occurs  the  following : — 

"Disciple:  Is  it  true  that  the  supreme  power  resides  in 
the  people?" 

"Master:  It  is  not  true.  It  would  be  absurd  to  affirm 
that  by  the  disposition  of  Nature  the  people  can  control 
or  moderate  themselves." 

The  disciple  then  asks:  "May  it  not  be,  as  the  liberal 
philosophers  say,  that  the  sovereignty  resides  in  the  peo- 
ple but  may  be  exercised  through  their  representatives?" 

The  master  shows  that  this  idea  is  utterly  delusive, 
that  the  people  cannot  delegate  a  power  which  they  have 
not. 

Chapter  seven  treats  of  the  constitution,  and,  in  its  de- 
fiance of  political  morality,  is,  perhaps,  the  boldest  in 
the  book.     It  is  clear  that,  in  some  of  the  answers  to  the 


CAVOUR  333 

questions  of  the  disciple,  the  archbishop  was  not  un- 
mindful of  the  famous  perjuries  of  various  kings  of 
Naples,  and,  especially,  of  his  royal  master,  in  swearing 
to  constitutions  and  then  openly  violating  them,  for  dur- 
ing the  dialogue  occur  the  following  questions  and  an- 
swers : — 

"Disciple:  Can  the  people  establish  the  fundamental 
laws  of  the  State?" 

"Master:  They  cannot,  because  the  constitution  and 
fundamental  laws  of  a  state  are  a  limitation  of  sover- 
eignty, and  sovereignty  cannot  receive  any  bounds  or 
measures  except  from  itself. ' ' 

"Disciple:  But,  if  the  people,  in  the  act  of  choosing  the 
sovereign,  have  imposed  upon  him  conditions  and  agree- 
ments, are  not  these  conditions  and  agreements  the  con- 
stitution and  fundamental  law  of  the  State?" 

"Master:  They  are  not  so,  because  the  people,  which 
was  made  for  submission  and  not  for  command,  cannot 
impose  any  law  upon  that  sovereignty:  it  receives  its 
power  not  from  the  people  but  from  God." 

"Disciple:  Is  not  a  prince,  who,  in  assuming  the  sov- 
ereignty of  a  state,  has  accepted  and  sanctioned  the 
constitution  or  fundamental  law  of  that  state  and  has 
promised  and  sworn  to  observe  it,  obliged  to  maintain 
his  promise  and  to  observe  that  constitution  and  that 
law?" 

"Master:  He  is  obliged  to  observe  it  in  so  far  as  it 
does  not  infringe  the  foundations  of  sovereignty,  and 
in  so  far  as  it  is  not  opposed  to  the  universal  good 
of  the  state. ' ' 

"Disciple:  Who,  then,  is  to  judge  when  a  constitution 
infringes  on  the  rights  of  the  sovereignty  or  injures  the 
people?" 

"Master:  The  sovereign  has  to  judge,  because  in  him 
exists  the  supreme  power  established  by  God  in  the 
state." 


334  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Chapter  eight  is  devoted  to  ' '  Government, ' '  and  begins 
as  follows : — 

"Disciple:  What  is  the  best  of  all  governments  for  a 
state?" 

"Master:  The  best  government  for  any  state  is  that 
under  which  it  is  at  the  present  moment  legitimately 
ruled." 

"Disciple:  But,  considering  things  in  the  abstract, 
what  is  the  best  of  all  governments?" 

"Master:  Hereditary  monarchy,  that  is  to  say,  that 
in  which  the  sovereignty  resides  in  the  monarch  alone 
and  passes  from  him  to  his  descendant." 

Chapter  nine  is  devoted  to  "Legitimacy,"  but,  though 
it  is,  in  some  respects,  the  most  subtle  of  the  book,  it  is 
one  of  the  most  inconclusive.  The  archbishop  evidently 
labors  under  difficulties.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
Church  had  sanctioned  the  usurpation  of  Napoleon  in 
France,  against  the  Bourbons,  and  of  other  rulers  of  the 
Napoleonic  period,  elsewhere,  against  the  old  ruling 
houses,  nothing  was  possible  here  save  to  raise  a  cloud 
and  escape  in  it. 

But  the  charge  of  obscurity  cannot  be  brought  against 
the  tenth  chapter,  which  is  entitled  "Revolution."  The 
archbishop  adopts  a  view  as  clear  as  the  day  and  shows 
the  courage  of  his  convictions.  Being  asked  by  the  dis- 
ciple whether  the  people  have  not  the  right  to  resist 
"when  the  prince  loads  his  subjects  with  enormous  taxes 
and  wastes  the  treasure  of  the  state,"  the  master  an- 
swers: "The  people  have  not  the  right  to  judge  re- 
garding the  needs  and  expenses  of  the  monarchy;  the 
Holy  Spirit,  by  the  mouth  of  St.  Paul  declares  to  the 
people,  'Pay  tribute,'  but  does  not  declare  to  the  people, 
'Examine  the  accounts  of  the  king.'  " 

After  arguments  in  this  strain  through  thirteen  chap- 
ters, the  disciple  says,  "Then,  according  to  your  judg- 


CAVOUR  335 

merit,  for  the  good  of  a  state  it  would  be  well  to  favor 
ignorance  rather  than  education?"  to  which  the  master, 
after  various  platitudes,  answers  as  follows : — 

"I  have  already  said  to  you  that  it  is  necessary  to 
follow  a  middle  course.  .  .  .  For  servants  and 
ploughmen,  a  proper  moderation  consists  in  knowing  the 
catechism  and  prayers  to  be  said  aloud,  and  nothing 
more;  in  other  classes,  moderation  consists  in  knowing 
how  to  read,  write  and  cast  accounts  a  little,  and  nothing 
more ;  for  other  classes,  moderation  consists  in  studying 
that  which  regards  the  proper  profession  of  each,"  etc. 

Eeading  this,  one  ceases  to  wonder  that  the  official 
map,  issued  shortly  after  this  system  had  ended,  showed 
that,  throughout  the  whole  extent  of  the  combined  king- 
dom of  Naples  and  Sicily,  the  proportion  of  persons  un- 
able to  read  or  write  was  over  eighty-five  in  every  hun- 
dred. 

Later  occurs  an  especially  curious  question : 

" Disciple:  Tell  me,  do  you  believe  that  the  newly 
invented  savings-banks  are  the  carnal  brothers  of  gen- 
eral instruction,  and  that  philosophy  is  preparing,  by 
means  of  them,  to  accomplish  the  diffusion  of  property 
and  goods?" 

1 '  Master :  Although  few  suspect  it  as  yet,  I  am  abso- 
lutely certain  of  it." 

The  fourteenth  chapter  is  entitled  "Our  Country," 
and  it  reveals  a  desperate  effort  to  root  out  from  the 
Italian  mind  everything  like  patriotism. 

The  master  tells  his  disciple  that,  if  similar  degrees 
of  the  thermometer  make  men  fellow-citizens,  then  the 
Eomans  and  the  Tartars  are  of  the  same  country;  that, 
as  to  similarity  of  language,  the  people  at  the  two  ends 
of  Italy  hardly  understand  one  another,  and  that,  if 
similarity  of  appellation  gives  fellow-citizenship,  and  all 
those    are    fellow-citizens    who    are    called    Italians, — 


336  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

"Then,  because  you  are  called  Bartholomew,  you  are  a 
fellow-citizen  of  all  the  Bartholomews  throughout  the 
world." 

The  book  is  at  times  witty  and  shrewd,  and  has  in  it, 
here  and  there,  suggestions  which  look  like  wisdom. 
There  is  in  it  much  historical  allusion,  but,  of  course,  as 
in  most  cases  where  ecclesiastics  write  for  the  supposed 
benefit  of  religion,  the  author  manipulates  history  to  suit 
his  necessities. 

As  to  Italian  independence,  he  insists  that  in  three- 
quarters  of  Italy,  Italian  independence  is  already  estab- 
lished, and  that  those  who  deny  it  are,  to  use  his  own 
words,  "simpletons  who  are  looking  round  for  their  hats 
when  their  hats  are  upon  their  heads."  He  defends  the 
rights  of  Austria  in  Lombardy  and  Venice  as  sacrosanct, 
and  winds  up  by  declaring  that  "the  independence  of 
Italy  ...  is  simply  a  cabalistic  phrase,  used  by 
thieves  and  scoundrels." 

In  this  work  culminated  an  effort  long  and  earnest. 
To  its  earlier  stage  belongs  the  ''History  of  France  for 
the  Use  of  Youth,  with  maps,  A.  M.  D.  G.,"  published  to 
uphold  the  French  Bourbons,  in  1820  and  1821,  by  the 
Jesuit  Father  Loriquet.  Father  Loriquet's  effort  had 
been  simply  to  efface  all  knowledge  of  the  Napoleonic 
Empire  from  the  French  mind,  and  his  history,  there- 
fore, made  Louis  XVII  the  immediate  successor  of  Louis 

XVI,  and  Louis  XVIII  the  immediate  successor  of  Louis 

XVII,  virtually  leaving  out  Napoleon  as  ruler,  mention- 
ing him  as  little  as  possible  and  always  under  the  name 
"Bonaparte." 

Exquisitely  naive,  also,  was  this  Jesuit  historian's  at- 
tempt to  discredit  "Bonaparte"  by  falsified  history. 
Perhaps  of  all  the  innumerable  Jesuit  attempts  to  manu- 
facture history  to  suit  ecclesiastical  purposes,  the  most 
comical  is  the  account  given  by  Father  Loriquet  of  the 
Battle  of  "Waterloo.     In  the  crisis  of  the  battle,  which  the 


CAVOUR  o37 

world  knows  by  heart,  lie  represents  the  Old  Guard  as  a 
mass  of  madmen,  firing  upon  one  another  while  the  Brit- 
ish look  upon  them  with  horror. 

The  final  effort  of  Archbishop  Apuzzo  to  save  the 
Neapolitan  Bourbons  turned  out  to  be  as  futile  as  the 
effort  of  Father  Loriquet  to  save  the  French  Bourbons. 
Each  book  became  a  laughing-stock  and  was  suppressed 
as  far  as  possible  by  the  reactionary  governments  in 
whose  supposed  interest  it  was  written.  Like  some  sim- 
ilar attempts  in  our  own  day  to  further  ecclesiastical 
interests,  each  recoiled  fatally  upon  those  who  prepared 
it.1 

To  maintain  the  system  thus  supported,  stood  Austria, 
the  agent  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  and,  whenever  there 
seemed  special  danger  of  any  movement  for  independ- 
ence or  constitutional  government,  international  con- 
gresses were  called,  as  at  Troppau  in  1820,  at  Laybach 
in  1821,  at  Verona  in  1822 ;  and  the  Bourbons  in  France 
showed  their  sympathy  by  sending  an  army  to  put  down 
constitutional  government  in  Spain. 

i  The  original  of  the  Catechismo  Filosofico  was  written  by  Monaldo 
Leopardi,  the  reactionary  father  of  the  liberal  philosopher,  Giaeomo  Leo- 
pardi,  and  published  in  1832,  and  again  in  1837.  A  careful  comparison  of 
these  two  early  editions  with  the  reprint  above  referred  to,  published  at 
Naples  in  1SG1  by  the  liberal  enemies  of  the  Bourbons,  shows  that  they 
are  substantially  alike.  It  is  of  this  later  edition  that  I  have  a  copy, 
for  which  I  am  indebted  to  the  Reverend  Father  Casoli,  of  Sorrento.  For 
an  opportunity  to  examine  the  earlier  editions  of  the  book  and  various 
works  bearing  upon  them,  I  am  indebted  to  H.  N.  Gay,  Esq.,  now  residing 
at  Rome.  The  work  is  ascribed  by  various  leading  writers  on  Italian 
history,  such  as  Montarolo  in  his  Opere  Anonime,  1884,  p.  12,  King,  in  his 
Italian  Unity,  vol.  i,  p.  367,  Gladstone  and  others,  to  Apuzzo,  as  they 
evidently  had  known  only  the  Neapolitan  edition. 

For  a  more  extended  presentation  of  the  questions  and  answers  of  this 
catechism,  see  a  paper  entitled  "A  Catechism  of  the  Revolutionary  Re- 
action," by  the  present  writer,  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  His- 
torical Association,  vol.  iv,  p.  69. 

A  copy  of  the  famous  History  of  France,  by  Father  Loriquet,  published 
at  Lyons,  1820-21,  may  be  found  in  the  library  of  Cornell  University. 
For  his  amazing  account  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  see  vol.  ii,  p.  374. 


338  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Was  any  concession  to  more  reasonable  ideas  made  in 
any  Italian  state,  large  or  small,  Metternich's  emissaries 
were  speedily  upon  the  spot,  using  bribes,  threats,  or 
pressure.  Austrian,  Papal,  or  Neapolitan  spies  swarmed 
in  churches,  cafes,  and  throughout  private  society;  they 
wrought  steadily,  at  the  post-office  and  in  the  confes- 
sional, to  discover  every  man's  political  ideas.  No  fam- 
ily so  high  or  so  low  as  to  be  exempt  from  police 
interference.  The  slightest  suspicion  led  to  arrest,  the 
pettiest  utterances  against  despotic  methods  led  to  the 
chain-gang  or  to  long,  solitary  imprisonment,  and  any- 
thing like  effective  resistance  brought  the  best  and 
bravest  to  the  scaffold. 

Such  was  the  system  which  the  great  powers,  assem- 
bled at  Vienna, — Great  Britain  now  and  then  halting  and, 
at  last,  ashamed, — had  developed  in  the  most  beautiful 
territory  and  for  the  most  gifted  people  in  the  world.. 
But  one  thing  European  rulers  had  left  out  of  their 
calculations, — the  great  body  of  thoughtful  and  patriotic 
Italian  men  and  women.  Over  all  this  misery  and  shame 
they  brooded  in  every  city  and  hamlet,  in  castles,  in 
shops,  in  professors'  chairs, — even  in  sacristies.  To 
them  Dante,  Michael  Angelo,  and  the  long  line  of  their 
inspired  countrymen  had  spoken.  More  and  more  these 
men  and  women  dreamed  of  independence,  of  unity,  of 
liberty.  These  were,  indeed,  troubled  dreams,  always 
fitful,  often  absurd,  sometimes  criminal,  but  they  were 
unceasing  and  foreshadowed  much. 

But  all  this  the  men  who  profited,  or  supposed  they 
profited,  by  the  existing  state  of  things,  could  not  or 
would  not  see  or  hear.  When  have  men  profiting  by 
unreason  and  wrong,  ever,  in  any  country,  really  seen 
their  own  true  interests?  The  ruling  classes  in  Italy 
were  as  blind  to  their  own  interests,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  as  were  sundry  great  American 
political  leaders  regarding  slavery,  in  the  middle  of  the 


CAVOUR  339 

same  century,  and  as  are  sundry  great  American  finan- 
cial leaders  in  our  own  time.  Both  those  and  these  have 
been  and  are  really  the  most  dangerous  fomenters  of 
revolution,  sure  to  bring  disaster  upon  their  country  and 
punishment  upon  themselves  and  their  children. 

The  first  main  effort  to  realize  something  better  in  the 
Italy  of  that  period  was  seen  at  Naples  in  1820.  The 
Bourbon  king,  Ferdinand  I,  was  finally  forced  to  grant 
a  constitution,  and  this  he  again  and  again  swore  to 
maintain.  Pathetic,  at  the  time,  were  his  profuse  pub- 
lic thanks  to  God  for  permitting  him  to  aid  so  great  and 
good  an  action, — and  to  the  leading  revolutionists  for 
showing  him  his  duty.  Especially  dramatic  was  his  oath 
in  the  chapel  of  his  palace,  when,  with  tears  in  his  eyes, 
he,  in  the  presence  of  a  great  assembly,  swore  to  main- 
tain the  constitution  and  invoked  the  curse  of  Heaven 
upon  his  head  if  his  oath  should  be  broken. 

The  Holy  Alliance  took  up  the  matter  at  once,  and  the 
three  sovereigns  of  Austria,  Prussia,  and  Russia  wrote 
letters  to  King  Ferdinand,  identical  in  character,  point- 
ing out  his  duty  to  violate  this  oath.  A  little  later  he 
went  to  meet  these  advisers  at  Laybach,  there  took  back 
his  oath,  thence  returned  heralded  by  an  Austrian  army, 
abolished  the  constitution,  and  sent  to  dungeons,  galleys, 
and  scaffolds  the  men  to  whom  he  had  rendered  such  pro- 
fuse thanks  for  advocating  it.1 

In  the  next  year  came  a  revolution  at  the  other  end  of 
Italy,  in  Piedmont.  Its  population  was  far  more  sound 
and  moral  than  that  of  Naples ;  its  rulers,  of  the  House 
of  Savoy,  far  higher  in  character  than  the  Bourbons. 
Deeply  religious,  even  bigoted,  many  of  them  had  been. 
Against  their  fearful  persecution  of  the  Waldenses, 
Milton  had  testified,  nearly  two  hundred  years  before, 

1  For  a  careful  account  of  this  period  by  a  Catholic  historian,  see 
Cantu,  Histoire  des  Italiens,  tome  xi,  livre  17.  See  also  Probyn,  as  above, 
p.  26. 


340  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

in  verses  that  have  echoed  through  human  hearts  from 
his  day  to  ours.  The  governmental  creed  of  these  rulers 
was  absolutism;  but,  at  least,  they  were  brave  and  true, 
and  this  was  destined  to  count  for  much — indeed,  for 
everything — in  the  history  which  followed.1 

The  demand  of  the  Piedmontese  revolution  was  for  a 
constitution,  but  against  this  the  Holy  Alliance  was  so 
firmly  set  that,  feeling  unable  to  grapple  with  the  diffi- 
culty, the  King,  Victor  Emmanuel  I,  abdicated,  giving 
over  the  succession  to  his  brother,  Charles  Felix.  As 
this  brother  was  living  in  retirement  at  Modena,  the  re- 
gency was  given  to  his  nephew  and  heir-presumptive, 
Charles  Albert,  who,  after  much  wavering,  reluctantly 
promised  a  constitution.  Against  this  constitution,  Aus- 
tria and  the  Alliance  took  ground  at  once:  the  regent's 
uncle,  King  Charles  Felix,  was  made  to  repudiate  the 
concessions  of  the  young  regent,  to  banish  him  to  Tus- 
cany with  bitter  reproach  and  insult,  and  at  least  to 
pretend  to  favor  an  intrigue  for  transferring  the  right  of 
succession  to  the  vilest  and  most  despotic  branch  of  the 
family,  that  of  the  murderer  Duke  Francis  of  Modena. 

Austria  now  pursued  at  Turin  the  same  policy  as  at 
Naples.  She  sent  an  army  which  supported  Charles 
Felix  in  annulling  the  constitution,  in  restoring  abso- 
lutism, in  sending  constitutionalists  to  dungeons  and 
scaffolds.2 

These  examples  served  as  powerful  deterrents  to  every 
open  effort  for  liberty,  and  there  now  came  ten  years 
of  slumber,  with  dreams  more  feverish  than  before.     No 

i  The  poem  referred  to  is  Milton's  sonnet  "On  the  Late  Massacre  in 
Piedmont,"  beginning  with  the  words: 

"Avenge,  0  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,  whose  bones 
Lie  scattered  on  the  Alpine  mountains  cold." 
2  For  the  Piedmontese  Revolution,  see  Santa  Rosa,  Costa  de  Beauregard, 
and  Masi;  but  for  an  English-speaking  student  there  is  ample  information, 
admirably   presented,   in   W.   R.   Thayer,   Dawn   of   Italian   Independence, 
1893,  vol.  i,  chap.  vi. 


CAVOUR  341 

great  dernonstratioiis  took  place,  but  everywhere  was 
seen  and  felt  an  active  and  even  poisonous  ferment  of 
liberty.  An  early  symptom  of  this  was  the  secret  society 
of  the  Charcoal-Burners :  the  Carbonari.  With  cere- 
monies somewhat  resembling  those  of  Masonry  and  with 
vows  against  tyranny,  this  society  spread  throughout  all 
the  Italian-speaking  peoples,  and  embraced  vast  numbers 
of  devotees  of  freedom,  from  the  highest  classes  to  the 
lowest.  Even  Louis  Bonaparte,  who  afterward  became 
Napoleon  III,  was,  in  his  youth,  one  of  those  who  swore 
fidelity  to  it.  Its  fanaticism  knew  no  limit ;  outrages  and 
assassinations  were  everywhere,  and  this  provoked  suc- 
cessive rulers  at  Naples  and  elsewhere  to  oppose  it  with 
every  sort  of  cruelty.  Torture  was  freely  used  to  detect 
it,  and,  in  the  Austro-Italian  dominions,  any  connection 
with  it  was  punished  by  death.  Every  expedient  was 
tried,  and  a  rival  organization,  in  behalf  of  absolutism, 
the  Sanfedisti,  with  vows  and  secret  ceremonies  equally 
fanatical,  was  created  to  ferret  it  out  and  fight  it.  The 
natural  result  followed.  Absolutism  pointed  to  these 
societies  as  its  justification,  and  by  their  excesses  gen- 
oral  European  public  opinion  was  first  made  cool  toward 
Italian  liberty  and,  finally,  hostile.  These  associations 
rapidly  deteriorated  and,  in  various  regions,  became  ban- 
ditti, glorying  in  outrage  and  murder,  as  do  "the  gangs'' 
in  some  of  our  great  American  cities  of  to-day.  Typical 
was  one  of  these  bands — the  Decisi — whose  leader,  an 
unfrocked  priest,  being  brought  to  trial  and  asked  how 
many  persons  he  had  himself  murdered,  answered,  "Who 
knows?     Sixty  or  seventy,  perhaps."  * 

Supported  by  the  public  opinion  thus  caused,  Austria 
and  her  subordinate  despotisms  went  further.  Great  num- 
bers of  thoughtful  and  serious  men  were  seized  and  con- 

i  On  the  Carbonari  see  Johnston,  The  Napoleonic  Empire  in  Southern 
Italy  and  the  Rise  of  the  Carbonari,  London,  1904.  An  example  of  a  Car- 
bonari discourse  may  be  found  in  the  Appendix,  p.  153. 


342  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

dernned,  among  them  the  heads  of  some  of  the  most 
eminent  Italian  families  at  Milan,  who  were  arrested 
and  dragged  to  Austrian  dungeons  or  scaffolds.  Notable 
was  the  case  of  Silvio  Pellico,  a  gentle,  religious  soul, 
known  widely  and  favorably  as  a  man  of  letters. 
Arrested  at  Venice  for  hostilities  of  a  very  mild,  schol- 
arly sort,  he  was  kept,  for  nearly  twenty  years  in  an 
Austrian  dungeon,  during  part  of  the  time  chained  to  a 
fellow-prisoner  who  was  suffering  from  a  repulsive  dis- 
ease. His  final  account  of  his  prison  life,  entitled  My 
Prisons,  with  his  simple  recitals  of  sufferings  and  con- 
solations, ran  through  Christendom,  touching  all  hearts 
and  inflaming  all  with  a  hatred  of  Austrian  tyranny. 
Throughout  Italy  matters  grew  worse  and  worse,  until 
even  the  most  determined  reactionaries,  largely  responsi- 
ble by  their  theories  or  their  acts  for  this  state  of  things, 
found  it  necessary  to  express  their  horror  and  to  throw 
blame  on  others.  Chateaubriand,  committed  though  he 
was  to  Bourbon  despotism  and  the  Church, — Metternich, 
yet  more  devoted  to  Hapsburg  despotism  and  reaction, — 
and  even  Joseph  de  Maistre,  hating  liberty  and  devoted 
to  the  most  extreme  theories  of  papal  authority,  de- 
nounced governments  responsible  for  this  cruelty  and 
folly.1 

And  yet  the  surface  of  things  was  charming:  as  free 
from  forebodings  as  was  the  surface  of  society  in  the 
American  Republic  in  1860,  when  drifting  toward  the 
abyss  of  Civil  War  which  swallowed  over  half  a  million 

i  For  an  account  of  the  severities  exercised  in  Northern  Italy  toward  the 
Carbonari,  see  An  Epoch  of  my  Life:  Memoirs  of  Count  John  Arrivabene, 
London,  1862.  For  pictures  of  the  cruel  struggle  in  Southern  Italy,  see 
Settembrini,  Ricordanze  della  mia  Vita,  Napoli,  1886.  As  to  the  easy- 
going life  of  the  time,  see  Silvagni,  La  Corte  e  la  Societd,  Romana  nei 
Secoli  XVIII  e  XIX,  English  translation  by  MacLaughlin.  For  the  better 
side  of  Italian  scientific  and  literary  development  under  the  old  regime  in 
Italy,  see  Cantu,  Histoire  des  Italiens,  vols,  x,  xi,  xii;  also,  for  a  very 
interesting  short  statement,  see  H.  D.  Sedgwick,  Short  History  of  Italy,, 
Boston,  1905,  chaps,  xxxii  and  xxxiii. 


CAVOUR  343 

of  the  best  lives  our  country  had  to  give.  Italy  at  large 
was  immoral,  superstitious,  and  happy.  From  the  whole 
world  pleasure-seekers  were  attracted  by  its  "fatal  gift 
of  beauty,"  scholars  by  its  monuments  of  former  great- 
ness, devotees  by  its  pomps  and  ceremonies  at  the  capital 
of  Christendom. 


II 

BUT  beneath  this  surface  the  political  disease  grew 
1  more  and  more  virulent.  In  1830  broke  out  the 
second  stage  of  revolution  in  France,  and  in  three  days 
the  French  Bourbon  monarchy  was  lost  forever.  Revo- 
lutions in  Italy  rapidly  followed.  The  murderer,  Duke 
Francis  IV,  was  soon  driven  out  of  Modena;  Maria 
Louisa,  the  worthless  widow  of  Napoleon,  fled  from  her 
Duchy  of  Parma ;  a  provisional  government  declared  the 
Pope's  temporal  power  ended  in  Bologna;  rebellion  was 
seething  in  Naples;  and,  most  ominous  of  all,  Charles 
Albert,  with  his  tendencies  to  constitutionalism,  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  in  Piedmont. 

Again  came  intervention  by  Austria.  Every  effort 
for  freedom  was  suppressed,  every  worthless  Italian  sov- 
ereign was  replaced;  constitutionalists  were  again  sent 
to  dungeons  and  scaffolds.  More  than  this,  France,  un- 
der pretext  of  jealousy  of  Austria,  sent  troops  to  Ancona, 
in  the  Papal  States,  and  thus  began  a  policy  of  French 
intervention  to  match  Austrian  intervention, — the  policy 
of  supplying  "bayonets  for  the  popes  to  sit  upon."  Be- 
yond supplying  this  doubtful  seat,  the  powers  could  really 
do  nothing.  Austria  and  France,  whatever  their  cruel- 
ties and  absurdities  might  be,  had  at  least  developed 
and  observed  decent  rules  in  ordinary  administration. 
Though  they  hanged  lovers  of  liberty,  they  did  not  sys- 
tematically foster  sloth,  poverty,  and  knavery;  but  the 
various  governments  throughout  Italy,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  those  in  Piedmont  and  Tuscany,  seemed  utterly 
given  over  to  vicious  administration,  and  among  the  worst, 
in  this  respect,  was  the  Papal  Kingdom.     Under  all  save 

344 


CAVOUR  345 

a  few  of  the  greatest  popes  it  had  been,  and  continued 
to  be,  a  scandal  to  Christendom.  All  really  important 
offices  were  filled  by  cardinals  and  Monsignori,  and,  while 
a  few  of  these,  like  Consalvi,  Lambruschini,  and  Anto- 
nelli,  were  statesmen,  the  vast  majority  were  sluggish 
reactionaries.  Against  this  state  of  things,  as  leading 
to  revolution,  Austria  and  France  protested  again  and 
again;  but  all  to  no  purpose;  the  Vatican  would  go  on 
after  the  old,  bad  way,  and,  finally,  it  received  its  reward. 

Still  another  government  which  gave  constant  trouble 
to  the  great  powers  banded  against  constitutional  free- 
dom, was  Piedmont.  Its  new  king,  Charles  Albert,  was, 
indeed,  strongly  religious  and  inclined  to  the  old  ways, 
but  more  and  more  it  was  seen  that  he  hated  foreign 
intervention  and  that,  to  put  an  end  to  it,  he  might  ac- 
cept the  aid  of  constitutionalists;  but  Austrian  pressure 
was  put  upon  him  and,  to  all  appearance,  his  patriotism 
ended. 

So  began  a  new  period  of  eighteen  years,  hardly  less 
sluggish  than  the  old, — its  hero  Mazzini.  Hardly  out  of 
his  boyhood,  he  launched  every  sort  of  brilliant  and 
cogent  attack  against  the  oppressors  of  his  country. 
Imprisoned  in  the  fortress  of  Savona,  he  pondered  over 
the  great  problem  even  more  deeply,  and,  on  his  release, 
wrote  a  letter  to  King  Charles  Albert,  urging  him  to 
head  the  movement  for  independence  and  liberty.  This 
letter  became  a  vast  force  in  arousing  a  national  spirit. 
Private  letters  and  published  articles  rapidly  followed 
from  his  pen,  each  a  powerful  blow  at  tyranny.  In  1831 
he  created  a  new  weapon.  He  had  entered  fully  into  the 
work  of  the  Carbonari,  had  risked  his  life  with  them 
again  and  again,  but  having  now  ceased  to  believe  in  their 
system  he  founded  the  society  of  "  Young  Italy." 

His  activity  seemed  preternatural.  He  appeared  to 
be  in  all  parts  of  Europe  at  once,  and  did  his  work  under 
every  sort  of  disguise  and  stratagem.     His  power  over 


346  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

the  Italian  youth  was  amazing:  obedient  to  his  call  they 
rose  in  cities,  villages,  regiments,  everywhere, — going  to 
death  joyfully.  From  London,  where,  after  1837,  he 
made  his  headquarters,  he  inspired  every  kind  of  Italian 
conspiracy  and  revolt;  but  gradually  it  dawned  upon 
thinking  friends  of  Italy  everywhere  that  these  costly 
sacrifices  of  the  most  precious  lives  were  not  adequately 
repaid.  From  a  practical  point  of  view  they  availed 
little.  His  right  to  sit  in  his  English  retreat  and  send  the 
flower  of  the  Italian  youth  to  be  shot  or  hanged  began 
to  be  widely  questioned.  His  ideal  was  an  Italian  repub- 
lic, but  there  were  so  few  republicans !  Republican  gov- 
ernment to  him  meant  freedom,  but  even  the  simplest 
students  of  history  could  remember  that  the  old  Roman 
republic,  and  every  one  of  the  mediaeval  Italian  repub- 
lics, had  resulted  in  the  tyranny  of  illiterate  mobs,  always 
followed  by  the  tyranny  of  single  despots  as  a  lesser 
evil.  Men  had  learned  the  truth  that  a  single  despot  can 
be  made  in  some  degree  responsible  to  public  opinion,  but 
that  a  mob  cannot. 

The  uprisings  inspired  by  Mazzini,  notably  that  of  the 
Bandiera  brothers,  were  mercilessly  trodden  down  in 
blood.  Nor  did  more  quiet  efforts  fare  better.  Tuscany 
tried  to  give  moderate  freedom  of  the  press,  but  Austria 
intervened  and  forced  the  Grand  Duke  to  appoint  min- 
isters who  ended  it. 

Yet  forces  were  at  work,  more  powerful  by  far  than 
Austria  and  the  Holy  Alliance.  Political  activity  being 
checked,  genius  and  talent  had  long  been  mainly  directed 
to  literature,  and  the  spectacle  of  Italy  in  the  hands  of 
her  oppressors  made  this  literature  patriotic.  There 
had  come  the  poetry  of  Alfieri,  Niccolini,  Rossetti,  and 
Giusti;  the  philosophy  of  Rosmini ;  the  prison  reminis- 
cences of  Silvio  Pellico;  the  romances  of  D'Azeglio, 
Guerrazzi,  and,  above  all,  the  Promessi  Sposi  of  Manzoni, 
the  most  perfect  historical  novel  ever  written.     These 


CAVOUR  347 

were  not  all  revolutionary  by  intention;  some,  like  the 
■writings  of  Pellico  and  Manzoni,  were  deeply  and  pathet- 
ically religious,  even  inculcating  submission  to  wrong; 
but  all  served  to  create  Italian  ideals,  to  stimulate  Italian 
patriotism,  and  to  give  more  and  more  life  to  the  idea  so 
hated  by  Austria  and  the  Holy  Alliance, — the  idea  of 
Italy  as  a  nation. 

The  patriotic  thought,  thus  gradually  evolved  as  a  vast 
elemental  force,  was  now  brought  to  bear  upon  events  by 
three  great  books. 

First  of  these  was  the  Moral  and  Civil  Primacy  of  the 
Italians,  by  Vincenzo  Gioberti.  This  was  a  glorification 
of  Italy  as  a  nation,  displaying  eloquently  her  greatness 
in  the  past  and  the  possibility  of  her  greatness  in  the 
future,  and  urging  a  confederation  of  the  existing  Italian 
states,  with  the  Pope  as  perpetual  president,  and  the 
King  of  Piedmont  as  the  "Sword"  of  Italy's  regenera- 
tion. Though  in  three  large  volumes,  it  was  read  and 
pondered  by  every  thinking  Italian,  man  or  woman. 

Closely  following  this  was  a  treatise  of  a  very  different 
sort,  by  Cesare  Balbo,  entitled  The  Hopes  of  Italy. 
Though  hardly  more  than  a  pamphlet,  and  though  it  gave 
up  the  idea  of  an  Italian  kingdom  as  chimerical,  it  pic- 
tured constitutional  liberty  and  Italian  independence  with 
a  clearness  and  strength  which  brought  conviction  to  all 
patriotic  hearts.  Statesmanlike  was  its  suggestion  that 
Austria  might  find  compensation  on  the  lower  Danube. 

The  third  of  these  works  was  a  small  treatise  by 
Massimo  d'Azeglio,  entitled,  The  Latest  Cases  in  the 
Romagna.  Of  all  the  three  writers  d'Azeglio  was  the 
most  fascinating  as  a  personality:  a  genius  in  painting 
and  poetical  fiction,  a  statesman  who  had  traveled  quietly 
through  various  governments  of  Italy  and  who  reported 
what  he  saw  with  amazing  lucidity  and  force.  The  latest 
cruelties  of  the  papal  subordinates  in  suppressing  the 
uprisings  in  the  Komagna  had  aroused  him,  and  he  made 


348         SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

the  world  see  and  understand  them.  His  work  was  not 
at  all  declamatory  or  hysterical;  perhaps  its  most  strik- 
ing feature  was  its  self-control;  it  was  plain,  simple, 
straightforward,  and  clear  as  crystal,  but  with  a  quiet 
and  restrained  eloquence  which  carried  all  before  it. 

Others  writers  of  genius  or  talent  followed  these, — 
among  them,  Durando,  Capponi,  and  their  compeers, — 
each  aiding  to  undermine  the  whole  existing  regime. 

The  votaries  of  science  also  wrought  for  the  same 
ideals.  The  Science  Congress  at  Genoa,  in  1846,  inevi- 
tably discussed  Italian  independence,  freedom,  and  prog- 
ress. The  Agricultural  Congress  at  Casale,  in  1847, 
took  the  same  direction,  and  to  it  came  a  letter  from 
King  Charles  Albert  which  set  all  hearts  throbbing  with 
patriotic  emotion.  For  it  contained  these  words:  "If 
Providence  sends  us  a  war  for  Italian  independence,  I 
will  mount  my  horse  with  my  sons  and  will  place  myself 
at  the  head  of  my  army.  .  .  .  What  a  glorious  day 
will  be  that  in  which  we  can  raise  the  cry  of  war  for  the 
independence  of  Italy!" 

Meantime,  in  1846,  an  event  of  vast  importance  had 
occurred.  There  had  come  to  the  papal  throne  Pius  IX. 
His  nature  was  deeply  religious,  kindly,  given  to  charita- 
ble effort,  and  his  aversion  to  cruelty  was,  doubtless,  a 
main  cause  of  his  desire  to  break  away  from  the  methods 
of  his  predecessors.  His  manner  was  most  winning  and 
he  held  wonderful  sway  over  devout  imaginations,  for 
in  great  religious  functions  and  ceremonies  he  was  su- 
premely impressive,  and  his  blessing,  chanted  forth  from 
the  balcony  of  St.  Peter's,  with  his  dramatic  action  in 
bestowing  it,  appealed  to  the  deepest  feelings  even  of 
those  who  differed  most  from  him.  But,  as  a  sovereign, 
he  was  the  last  of  men  to  carry  out  Gioberti's  great  pro- 
gramme,— to  preside  over  an  Italian  confederation,  or, 
indeed,  to  govern  his  own  states.     As  a  statesman  he 


CAVOUR  349 

failed  utterly, — beaten,  in  all  attempts  at  reform,  by  the 
Monsignori,  thwarted  in  all  his  good  intentions  by  Jesuits 
and  other  intriguers,  more  or  less  religious.  The  times 
called  for  a  Hildebrand,  or  an  Innocent  III,  or  a  Sixtus 
V,  and,  instead  of  any  one  of  these,  there  had  come  this 
kindly,  handsome  bishop,  vacillating,  fitful,  superstitious, 
dreaded  most  by  those  who  loved  him  best. 

At  first  he  mildly  opposed  Austria  and  appointed  a 
quasi-constitutional  ministry,  but  he  could  not  rise  above 
the  old  tradition,  and  in  this  new  ministry  there  were  no 
laymen. 

In  January,  1848,  a  new  constitutional  movement  began 
throughout  Italy.  Revolution  broke  out  in  Sicily,  and 
Ferdinand  II  granted  a  constitution.  This  movement 
extended  rapidly  to  all  parts  of  Europe.  The  Grand 
Duke  of  Tuscany  promised  a  constitution,  the  Pope 
showed  an  intention  to  grant  reforms,  and  even  called 
a  new  ministry  in  which,  for  a  wonder,  there  were  three 
laymen.  An  occurrence  at  one  of  the  early  meetings  of 
this  ministry  threw  a  curious  light  on  the  character  of 
Pope  Pius.  Presiding  over  this  body,  his  eye  happened 
to  light  upon  the  comet  then  appearing  in  the  Roman  sky. 
Rushing  to  the  window  and  opening  it,  he  fell  on  his 
knees  and  called  on  his  ministers — among  them  such  men 
as  Mezzofanti  and  Marco  Minghetti — to  kneel  also  and  to 
implore  the  Almighty  to  turn  away  the  calamities  of 
which  the  comet  was  the  forerunner.  The  pontiff  might 
well  be  pardoned  this  superstition,  for  everywhere 
throughout  Europe  were  signs  of  coming  political  catas- 
trophes. Under  popular  pressure  various  reforms  were 
granted  in  Piedmont,  among  them  more  liberty  to  the 
press, — a  condition  of  things  under  which  the  Pied- 
montese  could  at  last  discuss  public  questions  to  some 
purpose.1 

i  For  Pope  Pius's  fear  of  the  comet,  see  Minghetti's  Miei  Ricordi,  vol.  i, 


350  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

And  now  Europe  begins  to  hear  of  Cavour.  While  as 
writer  in  magazines  and  reviews  he  had  long  been  known 
and  prized  by  many  statesmen  and  economists  in  Italy, 
and  by  a  few  thinkers  in  England  and  France,  Europe 
and  the  people  at  large  in  Italy  as  yet  knew  him  not. 
But  it  happened  that,  just  at  this  time,  Genoa,  true  to  its 
old  republican  traditions  though  incorporated  into  the 
Kingdom  of  Piedmont,  began  to  be  restive  and  to  demand 
loudly  various  reforms  of  a  petty  sort, — among  these, 
the  banishment  of  the  Jesuits  and  the  creation  of  a 
national  guard.  This  subject  being  brought  up  for  dis- 
cussion in  a  meeting  of  publicists  and  journalists  at 
Turin,  Cavour  rises  and  compresses  the  needs  of  Pied- 
mont and  of  Italy  into  a  single  sentence.  Casting  aside 
all  petty  demands  for  changes  in  detail,  he  insists  that  the 
king  be  asked  "to  transfer  the  discussion  from  the  peril- 
ous arena  of  irregular  commotions  to  the  arena  of  legal, 
pacific,  solemn  deliberation."  The  audience  and  the 
country,  thinking  upon  this  utterance,  soon  recognized  its 
demand  for  a  constitution,  with  a  free  parliament,  as 
wholly  to  the  purpose, — as  the  solution  of  the  first  great 
Italian  problem, — and  during  the  great  discussions  which 
followed  in  the  press  Cavour  led  triumphantly.  His 
advice  was  at  last  followed,  and,  on  February  7,  1848, 
King  Charles  Albert  promised  a  constitution  which,  a 
month  later,  took  shape  in  a  royal  statute,  the  "  Statute  " 
Thus  began  a  great  new  epoch  in  which  Cavour  was  to 
be  the  leader,  and,  to  this  day,  the  anniversary  of  this 
grant  is  celebrated  throughout  Italy  as  the  date  most 
significant  for  her  Independence,  Unity,  and  Freedom 
since  the  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Camillo  Benso, — Count  Cavour, — who  now,  in  1848, 
rose  rapidly  above  Piedmont  and  Italy,  attracting  the 

pp.  347,  348;  and  cf.  also  the  Deutsche  Rundschau,  August,  1893,  p.  210. 
The  statement  regarding  his  dramatic  power  in  the  great  ceremonies  at  St. 
Peter's  is  based  upon  the  personal  recollections  of  the  present   writer. 


CAVOUR  351 

attention  of  all  Europe,  had  been  born  in  1810,  under 
the  Napoleonic  supremacy.  Curiously  connecting  him 
with  that  period  was  his  baptism,  when  Camillo  Borghese, 
Napoleon's  brother-in-law  and  representative  in  Pied- 
mont, consented  to  be  the  child's  god-father  and  to  give 
him  his  name. 

The  family  of  the  young  count  was  ancient  and  honor- 
able, his  father  a  marquis  in  high  public  employ  and  a 
sympathizer  with  the  old  regime;  his  mother,  though  a 
Catholic,  descended  from  Swiss  Protestants.  Of  his  near 
relatives,  uncles,  aunts,  cousins,  some  were  among  the 
highest  nobility  of  Paris  and  some  among  that  body  of 
liberal  thinkers  who  gave  distinction  to  Geneva.  Among 
the  former  was  the  ducal  family  of  Clermont-Tonnerre ; 
among  the  latter,  the  De  La  Eives.  Among  his  remoter 
kinsfolk  were  men  eminent  in  science  and  in  official  life, 
some  conservative,  some  radical,  but  all  respected  as 
patriotic  thinkers :  his  constant  intercourse  with  them, 
and  their  debates  on  current  questions  in  which  he  joined, 
counted  for  much  in  his  development,  moral  and  intel- 
lectual. 

As  a  second  son,  his  rights  to  rank  and  fortune  were 
greatly  limited,  and  this  fact  evidently  stirred  him  to 
exertion.  At  ten  years  of  age  he  was  entered  at  the 
military  academy  at  Turin,  and  at  sixteen  was  graduated 
with  special  distinction,  receiving  a  lieutenancy  of  engi- 
neers, an  honor  rarely  bestowed  on  one  so  young.  An 
aristocrat  in  any  evil  sense  he  was  not.  Though  never 
a  demagogue  in  his  utterances,  his  tendencies  were,  in  the 
truest  sense,  democratic.  Though  made  a  page  at  the 
royal  court  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  he  so  disliked  court 
etiquette  and  made  this  feeling  so  evident,  that  he  was 
soon  discharged.  His  tastes  were  for  mathematics, 
which,  both  then  and  in  his  after  life,  he  pursued  far, 
and  also  for  history,  political  economy,  and  social  sci- 
ence, and  for  the  English  language,  as  giving,  at  that 


352  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

time,  one  of  the  best  keys  to  these.  French  he  spoke  with 
ease  from  his  childhood,  and  English  he  came  to  speak, 
at  a  later  period,  with  fluency,  if  not  with  elegance. 

As  an  engineer  he  was  assigned  to  various  duties, — 
first  at  Genoa, — and,  though  devoted  to  mathematics  and 
social  science,  he  did  his  practical  work  thoroughly  well. 
But  now  came  trouble.  It  was  the  period  of  the  lowest 
debasement  of  Italy,  and  the  period  also  of  the  second 
French  Eevolution,  in  1830,  which  relieved  France  for- 
ever from  the  elder  Bourbons.  Naturally  he  brooded 
over  the  iniquities  and  absurdities  which  he  saw  about 
him,  jotted  down  his  reflections  from  time  to  time,  and 
let  his  thoughts  be  known ;  as  a  result  he  was  banished  to 
nominal  duties  in  the  mountain  districts,  and,  finally,  to 
virtual  imprisonment  in  the  Alpine  fortress  of  Bard, 
where,  during  eight  months,  his  companions  were  of  the 
rudest.1 

Returning  from  his  captivity,  he  abandoned  his  mil- 
itary career,  despite  the  bitter  regret  of  his  family. 
Charles  Albert  had  just  come  to  the  throne  of  Piedmont, 
and,  in  view  of  his  mysticism  and  vacillation,  no  chance 
of  any  public  career  for  a  man  of  liberal  views  was  vis- 
ible; indeed,  the  new  king  had  already  indicated  his 
hostility  to  Cavour,  declaring  him  the  most  dangerous 
man  in  the  kingdom.  Cavour  therefore  asked  permission 
to  take  charge  of  one  of  the  family  estates,  and  became 
a  farmer.  At  the  beginning  he  was  ignorant  of  the  sim- 
plest rudiments  of  agriculture ;  but  his  power  of  thought 
and  work  now  showed  itself,  and,  before  long,  he  attracted 
attention  far  and  near  by  his  success  in  this  new  pro- 
fession. From  the  first,  he  applied  scientific  methods, 
but  always  under  the  control  of  that  sound,  strong  com- 
mon sense  which  afterward  became  so  important  a  factor 

i  For  very  interesting  details  of  Cavour's  early  life  and  for  especially 
significant  extracts  from  his  note  books  on  his  reading,  see  Berti,  II 
Conte  Cavour  avanti  il  18.'f8,  especially  pp.  87  and  following. 


CAVOUR  353 

in  his  political  and  diplomatic  activity.  To  the  end  of 
his  life  he  cherished  the  love  for  farming  thus  begun,  and. 
even  in  the  midst  of  his  most  active  political  services 
afterward,  he  continued  the  steady  improvement  of  agri- 
culture, and  thereby  deserved  well  of  his  country. 

But  this  was  by  no  means  all.  His  activity  seemed 
boundless.  While  managing  great  estates  and  bringing 
under  cultivation  large  districts  hitherto  worthless,  he 
established  manufactories,  mills,  a  railway,  a  line  of 
steamers  on  the  Lago  Maggiore,  a  bank  at  Turin,  and 
much  besides.  For  a  wonder,  his  enterprises  succeeded : 
nine  men  out  of  ten,  taking  up  so  many  vocations,  would 
have  ruined  themselves  and  all  their  friends;  but  in  all 
this  work  his  foresight,  his  insight,  and,  above  all,  his 
keen,  strong  common  sense  carried  him  through  triumph- 
antly. Though  caring  little  for  money,  refusing,  in  one 
instance,  a  great  bequest  which  he  might  have  accepted 
most  honorably,  he  accumulated  in  his  various  enterprises 
a  large  private  fortune. 

During  seventeen  years — the  years  between  the  resig- 
nation of  his  position  in  the  army,  in  1831,  and  the  great 
revolutionary  outbreak  in  Europe  in  1848 — he  threw 
himself  fully  into  this  practical  work.  Political  life 
there  was  none  which  he  cared  for:  he  was  excluded 
from  state  service  by  the  prejudices  of  the  king,  the 
aristocracy,  and  the  clergy,  but,  most  of  all,  by  his  own 
self-respect.  His  high  rank,  connections,  and  abilities 
made  him  eligible  for  the  foremost  offices  of  the  mon- 
archy, but  an  office-seeker  he  could  not  be;  for  office  in 
itself,  or  for  its  emoluments,  he  cared  nothing ;  for  power 
as  such  he  cared  nothing;  and  this  was  his  spirit  to  the 
last  hour  of  his  life;  for  office  and  power  he  cared  only 
as  a  means  of  enforcing  his  ideas. 

Despite  his  attention  to  work  remote  from  political 
activity,  he  was  constantly  under  grave  and  annoying 
suspicions,  both  from  the  government  of  his  own  country 


354  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

and  from  that  of  Austria.  In  1833  the  Director  General 
of  Police  at  Milan  issued  instructions  to  public  officials 
at  the  frontier,  warning  them  to  be  on  the  watch  against 
one  Camillo  di  Cavour,  who  "in  spite  of  his  youth  is 
already  deeply  corrupted  in  his  political  principles." 

Still,  even  under  the  ban  thus  laid  upon  him,  both  by 
his  own  country  and  by  its  enemies,  and  in  the  midst  of 
all  this  practical  work  so  remote  from  politics,  he  had 
prophetic  dreams.  At  this  very  time  he  wrote  a  letter 
to  an  intimate  friend,  in  which  he  said,  "I  can  assure  you 
that  I  shall  make  my  way.  I  own  that  I  am  enormously 
ambitious,  and  when  I  am  minister  I  hope  to  justify  my 
ambitions.  In  my  dreams  I  see  myself  already  minister 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Italy."  And  this  was  written  when 
he  was  twenty-four,  when  a  "Kingdom  of  Italy"  seemed 
utterly  impossible,  and  the  very  mention  of  it  was 
treason. 

Yet,  during  all  those  seventeen  years,  he  was  prepar- 
ing himself  for  far  higher  service.  In  the  intervals  of 
business  he  made  extended  journeys  and  long  stays  in 
Switzerland,  France,  and  England.  Visiting  Paris,  he 
entered  fully  into  the  society  of  the  foremost  thinkers, 
writers,  and  statesmen,  discussed  current  political  prob- 
lems with  them,  frequented  the  parliamentary  bodies 
and  studied  closely  their  procedure,  attended  lectures 
by  the  foremost  men  of  science  at  the  Sorbonne  and  else- 
where, examined  thoroughly  farms,  factories,  mines, 
prisons, — every  sort  of  man  or  place  likely  to  give  him 
knowledge  of  value  to  his  country. 

In  England,  also,  he  made  vigorous  studies,  especially 
of  parliamentary  procedure,  methods  in  agriculture,  man- 
ufactures, and  commerce,  dealings  with  pauperism, 
crime,  and  every  branch  of  national  economy.  He  also 
devoted  himself,  early  and  late,  to  British  history, — 
studying  carefully,  not  only  the  dealings  of  living  states- 
men with  large  questions,  but  the  struggle  of  Pitt  with 


CAVOUR  355 

Napoleon,  of  Chatham  with  the  Bourbons,  and  even  the 
policy  of  Cromwell  and  the  Stuarts  in  its  relations  to 
British  freedom  and  power. 

Thus  he  absorbed  ideas  of  Anglo-Saxon  liberty,  and 
strengthened  his  faith  in  free  government;  in  after 
years  this  became  of  vast  value  to  his  country,  but  it 
brought  at  first  some  obloquy,  and,  especially,  the  nick- 
name of  "My  Lord  Camillo."  Though  there  was  never 
a  nobleman  who  cared  less  for  distinctions  of  rank,  and 
prized  more  highly  eminence  in  character  and  attain- 
ment and  patriotic  service,  this  nickname,  for  a  time, 
served  well  the  purposes  of  knaves  and  fools :  they  called 
him  a  "reactionary  in  disguise,"  caricatured  him  in  a 
pig-tailed  wig,  and,  for  a  considerable  period,  made  him 
one  of  the  most  unpopular  men  in  his  country. 

Returning  home,  he  redoubled  his  efforts  to  improve 
agriculture,  manufactures,  and  commerce,  and,  what  was 
yet  more  important  at  that  epoch,  to  promote  discussion, 
economic  and  political.  To  this  end  he  founded  an  agri- 
cultural club  and  even  a  "whist  club," — mainly  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  together  thinking  men, — published 
articles  in  reviews,  and,  among  these,  studies  on  agricul- 
ture, pauperism,  and,  above  all,  in  1846,  in  the  Paris 
Revue  Nouvelle,  a  masterly  review  of  a  book  on  railways 
which  in  Piedmont  had  been  forbidden.  That  was  the 
period  when  railway  development  on  the  continent  was 
beginning,  and  very  slowly.  Franz  List,  one  of  the  most 
gifted  of  political  thinkers,  who  had  urged  it  in  Ger- 
many, had  failed,  and  died  impoverished  and  broken- 
hearted. But  Cavour  was  of  sterner  stuff;  he  aroused 
thought  throughout  Europe,  but  especially  in  Italy,  for 
he  dwelt  upon  the  value  of  railway  communication  as  an 
agency  in  the  conveyance,  not  merely  of  bales  and  boxes,, 
but  of  ideas.  That  which  led  various  Italian  princelings 
and,  above  all,  the  Papal  Government,  to  dread  railways, 
led  him  to  promote  them,  for  he  recognized  in  them  a 


356  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

power  not  only  for  the  introduction  of  better  ideas  but 
for  the  unification  of  his  country.1 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  work,  which  required  an  amaz- 
ing activity,  he  found  time  to  cultivate  some  beautiful 
friendships  and  to  keep  up  correspondences  which  re- 
main among  the  treasures  of  literature.  His  letters  to 
the  elder  De  La  Eive,  wise,  witty,  suggestive,  are  among 
these;  but  most  striking  perhaps  of  all  is  his  corre- 
spondence with  the  Countess  de  Circourt.  She  was  of 
Eussian  birth,  married  to  a  man  of  eminence  in  France, 
and,  though  she  was  a  hopeless  invalid,  her  salon  at 
Paris  was  the  centre  of  a  large  circle  of  eminent  men  of 
various  nationalities,  among  whom  was  Cavour.  With 
her  he  found  time  to  discuss  all  sorts  of  subjects,  grave 
and  gay;  and  their  letters,  as  given  to  the  world  by 
Count  Nigra  (in  his  early  life  one  of  Cavour 's  secre- 
taries, since  so  distinguished  as  ambassador  to  France 
and  to  Austria,  and,  more  recently,  as  president  of  the 
Italian  delegation  at  the  Peace  Conference  of  The 
Hague),  throw  a  beautiful  light  into  the  depths  of 
Cavour 's  character.2 

In  December,  1847,  he  founded,  at  Turin,  a  newspaper, 
The  Resurrection, — II  Risorgimento, — and  he  pressed 
into  the  service  with  him  a  majority  of  the  leading  think- 
ers of  upper  Italy,  chief  among  them  being  Cesare  Balbo, 
who  had  already  done  so  much  for  his  country  with  his 
famous  treatise,  Belle  Speranze  d' Italia. 

As  a  writer,  Cavour  felt  himself  lacking  much.  He 
confessed  that  he  had  never  had  any  adequate  training 
in  literature,  and  his  writings  certainly  lacked  the  beauty 
which  made  so  many  of  his  contemporaries  famous;  but 

1  For  a  very  striking  passage  regarding  the  early  foresight  of  Cavour 
in  promoting  railways,  and  its  effect  upon  Italian  unity,  see  Zanichelli, 
introduction  to  Oli  Scritti  del  Conte  di  Cavour,  Bologna,   1892,  p.  55. 

2  For  the  De  Circourt  correspondence,  see  the  English  translation  by 
Butler,  London,  1894. 


CAVOUR  357 

his  patriotism  broke  through  all  obstacles.  His  style, 
rough  at  times  but  always  clear  and  forcible,  held  his 
readers;  his  knowledge  of  events  and  his  experience 
among  men  convinced  them,  and  his  earnestness,  rising 
at  times  into  fervent  eloquence,  inspired  them.1 

At  first  he  wrote  mainly  on  large  subjects,  economical 
and  social,  of  general  value  to  his  country ;  but  more  and 
more  he  turned  to  political  questions,  and  was  soon  rec- 
ognized as  a  leader.  He  was  neither  a  demagogue  nor 
a  doctrinaire.  He  avoided  revolution  and  revolutionary 
methods;  but  he  believed  in  revolution  when  nothing 
short  of  it  would  do,  and  when  it  could  be  controlled  by 
men  of  thought  and  knowledge.  He  believed  in  the 
steady  development  of  better  institutions  rather  than  in 
vociferation,  in  open  discussion  rather  than  in  con- 
spiracy, and  in  right  reason  rather  than  fanaticism. 
He  hated  the  despotism,  not  only  of  tyrants  but  of  mobs, 
and  he  disbelieved  hardly  less  profoundly  in  Carbona- 
rism  and  the  plots  of  Mazzini  than  in  the  methods  of 
Francis  of  Austria  and  Ferdinand  of  Naples. 

Opposed  to  him  were  extremists  on  both  sides, — men 
calling  themselves  "Monarchists,"  who  had  ruined  or 
were  destined  to  ruin  every  monarch  who  trusted  to  them ; 
and  men  calling  themselves  "Democrats,"  or  "Repub- 
licans," who  had  brought  to  naught  every  effort  in  Eu- 
rope for  rational  liberty.  Revolution  was  to  him  the 
last  remedy  in  the  most  dire  extremity. 

Therefore  it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  that,  when  the 
revolutionary  leaven  of  1848  began  working  throughout 
Europe,  and  revolutionists  in  Genoa  and  elsewhere  began 
declaiming  in  favor  of  this  or  that  quackish  panacea, 
Cavour,  to  save  liberty  from  mobs  on  one  side  and  mon- 
archy on  the  other,  threw  all  his  power  into  an  effort  to 

1  For  a  brief  but  excellent  statement  regarding  tbe  influence  of  Cavour'3 
life  as  a  journalist  upon  his  life  as  a  statesman,  see  Zanichelli,  Cavour, 
pp.  166  and  following. 


358  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

secure  a  constitution.  His  success  was  immediate,  and 
the  Statuto  advocated  by  him  and  issued  by  King  Charles 
Albert  became  at  once  the  cornerstone  of  Piedmontese 
liberty,  and,  finally,  of  Italian  liberty  and  unity. 

The  Statuto  was  no  mere  makeshift,  no  worthless 
promise  made  by  a  despot  in  trouble.  Promises  made  by 
the  Bourbons  had  come  to  count  for  nothing,  and  prom- 
ises made  by  Hapsburgs  were  little  better;  pledges 
from  either  of  these  houses  had  come  to  be  regarded 
much  like  those  made  two  centuries  before  by  Charles 
the  First  of  England,  who  had  lied  to  all  parties  until  it 
was  found  that  putting  him  to  death  was  the  only  remedy. 
But  a  promise  from  the  House  of  Savoy  was  of  sterling 
value,  not  only  in  the  eyes  of  Italy,  but  of  Europe.  How 
much  it  meant  was  to  be  seen  later,  not  only  in  Italy  but 
in  Spain  and  throughout  Europe. 

The  revolutionary  movement  in  Europe  spread  rapidly 
and  irresistibly.  Louis  Philippe  fled  from  his  throne  in 
France,  the  King  of  Prussia  was  humiliated  by  the  mob 
in  his  capital ;  from  every  part  of  Europe  despots,  great 
or  small,  rumbled  along  the  high-roads  toward  England. 

In  this  general  scramble  for  safety,  absolute  rulers  now 
began  to  offer  reforms  and  even  constitutions,  but,  ere 
long,  nearly  all  the  petty  princelings  of  Italy  fled  from 
their  states.  Even  Rome  moved.  Pope  Pius  offered, 
finally,  as  we  have  seen,  various  reforms,  among  them  a 
ministry  containing,  for  a  wonder,  three  laymen,  and  even 
a  parliament, — but  this  parliament  subject  to  a  secret 
committee  of  cardinals. 

Best  of  all  for  Italy  was  the  revolution  at  Vienna. 
Milan  and  Venice  rose  immediately,  and  each  drove  out 
the  Austrian  oppressor;  Italian  patriotism  seemed  irre- 
sistible, and  the  whole  nation  rose  in  aid  of  these  two 
city-centres  of  effort  for  national  independence. 

Up  to  this  time  Cavour  had  in  all  his  work  sought  to 
develop  Italian  resources,  to  promote  education,  to  stim- 


CAVOUR  359 

ulate  the  arts  of  peace,  to  resist  everything  like  revo- 
lution. Now  comes  a  sudden  change.  In  all  his  utter- 
ances he  is  now  for  war ;  he  declares  that,  no  matter  how 
inferior  in  forces  Piedmont  may  be,  she  must  march  to 
the  aid  of  Milan  and  Venice. 

To  this  pressure  King  Charles  Albert  yielded,  marched 
his  troops  against  Austria,  was  in  the  first  main  battle — 
Goito — successful,  and  entered  Milan  as  a  conqueror. 
As  he  had  promised,  his  sons  supported  him  bravely.  Of 
one  of  them,  the  world  was  destined  to  hear  much, — as 
Victor  Emmanuel  II.  The  world  now  began  to  hear  also 
of  one  Joseph  Garibaldi,  fighting  in  the  mountains  at  the 
head  of  volunteers. 

But  King  Charles  Albert  was  no  general ;  his  first  vic- 
tory was  not  vigorously  followed  up,  and  calamities  came 
on  all  sides.  Pope  Pius,  having  yielded  to  the  Roman 
people  so  far  as  to  send  troops  to  keep  the  Austrians  out 
of  his  dominions,  began  to  show  an  utter  unwillingness  to 
do  more;  he  would  give  no  further  help  to  his  fellow 
Italians  rebelling  against  his  old  friend  Austria.  Ferdi- 
nand of  Naples,  who  at  first,  after  the  Neapolitan-Bour- 
bon fashion,  made  every  sort  of  patriotic  pledge  and 
proclamation,  and  had  sent  ships  and  troops  against 
Austria,  now  turned  traitor  and  secretly  issued  instruc- 
tions to  his  admirals  and  generals,  nullifying  all  their 
patriotic  efforts;  other  Italian  princelings  followed  his 
example ;  in  the  minds  of  all  these  rulers  there  was  work- 
ing not  only  a  hatred  of  constitutional  liberty,  but  a 
jealousy  of  Piedmont  as  the  head  of  the  new  movement, — 
as  the  kingdom  whose  monarch  had  begun  to  lead  Italy 
to  victory  and  who  might  profit  by  it. 

But  there  came  things  worse  by  far  than  these, — polit- 
ical fooleries  of  the  sort  which  have  generally  ruined 
revolutions.  At  Milan,  the  great  centre  of  Lombardy, 
after  days  of  heroic  bravery,  came  a  reign  of  utter  folly, 
— long  and  bitter  discussions  as  to  what  sort  of  govern- 


360  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

rnent  should  be  established  when  Italian  liberty  should  be 
finally  achieved,  demands  for  a  Constituent  Assembly,  for 
a  Convention,  for  all  the  fine  things  which  had  hitherto 
brought  every  European  revolution  to  ruin.  It  was  a 
folly  only  comparable  with  the  scenes  at  Constantinople, 
nearly  five  hundred  years  before,  when  the  leaders  gave 
their  time  to  impassioned  debates  on  theological  points, 
while  the  Turks  were  storming  the  walls  of  the  city.  Nor 
was  this  all.  At  Rome  things  were  even  worse.  Pius 
IX  had  wisely  selected,  as  the  head  of  his  cabinet,  Pel- 
legrino  Eossi,  a  political  thinker  whose  abilities  had  re- 
ceived the  highest  recognition  in  Switzerland  and  France, 
a  statesman  who,  though  a  refugee  from  Italy,  had  been 
made  an  ambassador  at  Eome  by  the  government  of  Louis 
Philippe.  No  thinking  man  denied  Rossi's  high  charac- 
ter and  great  ability,  and  it  was  certain  that  all  his  influ- 
ence would  be  thrown  in  behalf  of  constitutional  liberty ; 
but  meantime  had  come  declarations  of  schemers  and 
dreamers,  demanding  fruit  on  the  day  the  tree  was 
planted,  stimulating  every  sort  of  outbreak,  glorifying 
every  growth  of  quackery,  demanding  "government  by 
the  people" — by  which  they  meant  the  sovereignty  of  the 
city  mob — and  denouncing  Rossi  as  an  incarnation  of 
evil. 

The  natural  result  of  such  denunciations  followed, — 
the  same  result  of  unbridled  calumny  which  our  own 
Republic  has  seen  in  the  deaths  of  Lincoln,  Garfield,  and 
McKinley.  Rossi  was  assassinated  at  the  door  of  Par- 
iament ;  and  the  Pope,  a  prisoner  at  the  Quirinal,  insulted, 
terrified,  gave  up  all  hope  or  effort  for  liberty  and  fled 
to  Gaeta.  From  that  date,  through  his  entire  reign,  the 
longest  in  the  history  of  the  Papacy,  Pope  Pius  remained 
an  utter  disbeliever  in  free  government;  and  not  only 
this  but  a  disbeliever  in  all  freedom  of  thought,  destined, 
in  his  famous  "Encyclical,"  to  make  the  most  reactionary 


CAVOUR  361 

declaration  against  everything  like  human  freedom  which 
the  world  has  ever  known  until  that  of  Pius  X  in  1907. 1 

Thus  it  was  that  "the  fool  reformer" — the  worst 
plague  of  thinking  statesmen,  in  all  times — had  done  the 
work  of  Austria  and  the  Italian  tyrants  thoroughly, — as 
thoroughly  as  did  similar  "reformers"  in  Russia  thirty 
years  later,  when  they  assassinated  Alexander  II,  the 
Czar  Emancipator,  in  the  midst  of  his  efforts  to  give 
his  people  constitutional  liberty, — and  as  they  have  done 
it  since,  under  Nicholas  II.  At  this  cruel  murder  of 
Rossi,  all  Europe,  and,  indeed,  all  the  world,  was  dis- 
heartened and  even  disgusted. 

In  northern  Italy  Charles  Albert  had  tried  to  fight  on, 
but,  in  July  of  1848,  at  the  battle  of  Custozza,  he  was 
overcome  and  there  came  a  truce.  Now  was  the  time 
to  call  in  Cavour;  but  the  king  still  distrusted  him,  the 
people  misunderstood  him,  the  Turin  mob  had  its  way, 
another  period  of  political  mistakes  set  in,  and,  as  a 
result,  the  Piedmontese  army  marched  once  more  against 
Austria,  and  in  March,  1849,  at  Novara,  was  soundly 
and  thoroughly  beaten.  The  king  abdicates  his  throne, 
even  on  the  battlefield,  takes  refuge  in  Portugal,  and 
soon  dies.  Full  reaction  succeeds  throughout  Italy,  and, 
indeed,  throughout  Europe.  Austria,  in  spite  of  her  own 
troubles    elsewhere,    is    jubilant    in    Italy.     Again    her 

1  For  interesting  and  brilliant  descriptions  and  statements  of  the  various 
episodes  in  the  struggle  before  and  after  the  battle  of  Novara,  see  W.  R. 
Thayer,  The  Daun  of  Italian  Independence,  Boston,  1893,  vol.  ii,  chap.  ii. 

For  a  convincing  exhibition  of  these  revolutionary  follies,  see  Cantu, 
Histoire  des  Italiens,  vol.  xii,  livre  xviii;  also  Ottolini,  La  Revoluzione 
Lombarda  del  18^8-18^9,  Milan,  1887.  For  some  redeeming  characteristics 
of  the  Italian  revolutionists,  see  Countess  Martinengo  Cesaresco,  Italian 
Characters,  especially  the  chapters  on  Bassi,  Bixio,  and  others. 

For  a  succinct  but  striking  picture  of  the  earlier  political  follies  of  the 
mob  at  Milan  in  Bonaparte's  time,  see  Lemmi,  Le  Origini  del  Risorgimento 
Italiano,  pp.  118  and  following.  For  curious  details  regarding  the  earlier 
patriotic  activity  of  Rossi  in  Italy,  see  same,  pp.  427  and  437. 


362  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

troops  enter  Milan  and,  finally,  Venice;  still  worse,  if 
possible,  a  French  garrison  enters  Rome,  nominally  to 
control  reformers  of  the  sort  who  had  murdered  Rossi; 
and  there  it  remained  for  nearly  twenty  years. 

All  seemed  lost.  Piedmont,  under  its  new  king,  Vic- 
tor Emmanuel  II,  seemed  utterly  at  the  mercy  of 
Austria.  The  material  distress  of  the  little  kingdom 
was  of  the  greatest,  but,  in  spite  of  it,  she  showed  a 
moral  elevation  which  from  the  first  indicated  that  she 
would  finally  rise  above  all  this  calamity;  and  the  main 
agent  in  this  new  effort  was  Cavour.  Up  to  this  time, 
though  recognized  as  a  powerful  journalist  and  man 
of  affairs,  he  had  taken  no  official  part  in  political  life. 
He  had  been  a  candidate  for  election  to  Parliament  and 
had  been  beaten;  but  the  people,  taught  by  adversity, 
seeing  that  his  counsels  had  been  prompted  by  patriotic 
foresight,  finally  elected  him.  The  new  king's  ministry 
was  led  by  D'Azeglio,  but,  at  last,  after  various  minis- 
terial changes,  came  a  personal  catastrophe  which  ended 
in  a  way  most  unexpected. 

Holding  the  Departments  of  Agriculture,  Commerce, 
and  the  Navy  in  the  ministry  was  Santa  Rosa,  a  patriotic 
writer  and  scholar,  respected  and  beloved  throughout 
the  kingdom.  Suddenly,  in  the  autumn  of  1850,  he  was 
taken  with  mortal  illness.  As  a  writer  he  had  been  one 
of  Cavour 's  main  colleagues  in  the  editorial  work  of  the 
Risorgimento;  as  a  minister  he  had  aided  to  carry  out 
one  of  Cavour 's  main  ideas,  by  bringing  into  Parlia- 
ment a  bill  abolishing  the  mediaeval  powers  of  eccle- 
siastical tribunals.  Against  this,  though  the  Church  had 
long  before  agreed  to  a  similar  reform  in  France,  there 
came  fierce  ecclesiastical  protests,  and,  in  his  dying 
hours,  Santa  Rosa,  though  a  devout  Catholic,  was  refused 
the  last  sacraments,  by  order  of  Monsignor  Fransoni, 
the  Archbishop  of  Turin.  To  most  men  of  these  days 
such  a  matter  would  seem  of  little  consequence,  but,  to 


CAVOUR  363 

the  devout  populace  of  Turin,  it  seemed  an  awful  catas- 
trophe and  they  held  the  archbishop  responsible  for  it. 
The  hatred  thus  engendered  lasted  long.  It  was  brought 
to  bear  in  various  ways  upon  those  whose  petty  spite 
had  caused  it  and  upon  the  Church  at  large,  but  its 
most  noteworthy  immediate  result  was  that  patriotic 
pressure  now  obliged  the  young  king  to  name  Cavour 
as  Santa  Rosa's  successor.  The  king  yielded  grace- 
fully, but  with  the  jocose  warning  to  all  the  other  minis- 
ters that  Cavour  would  some  day  occupy  all  their  places. 
As  we  shall  see,  this  prediction  proved  virtually  true: 
with  the  exception  of  one  ministry,  that  of  Justice, 
Cavour  was  destined,  at  various  periods,  to  occupy  all 
the  positions  in  the  royal  cabinet,  and  not  infrequently 
several  of  them  at  the  same  time. 

Various  difficulties  followed;  but  the  country  soon 
recognized  him  as  its  leader.  The  special  work  of  his 
new  office  was  done  admirably.  Agriculture  he  devel- 
oped as  never  before;  manufactures  he  strengthened  by 
the  best  scientific  and  practical  methods;  commerce  he 
extended  by  special  treaties ;  as  to  the  navy,  there  came 
a  stroke  of  genius,  for  he  founded  the  great  naval  arsenal 
at  Spezzia: — people  complained  that  it  was  on  the  ex- 
treme edge  of  the  Piedmontese  dominions;  but  he  made 
little  if  any  reply,  treasuring  in  his  heart  of  hearts  the 
fact  that  for  a  future  united  Italy  it  was  the  best  site 
possible. 

A  dissolution  of  the  ministry  having  come  in  1852, 
Cavour  gave  up  office  for  a  time,  visited  France  and 
England,  made  a  closer  acquaintance  than  ever  with 
their  leading  statesmen,  and,  most  important  of  all,  met 
for  the  first  time  Napoleon  III,  and  had  an  opportunity 
to  impress  his  ideas  regarding  Italy  on  that  monarch, 
formerly  a  Carbonaro,  now  in  all  his  glory  as  Emperor 
of  the  French, — not  yet  shown  to  the  world  by  Bismarck 
as  "a  great  unrecognized  incapacity." 


364  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Ketuming  to  Turin  and  again  entering  the  ministry, 
Cavour's  work  became  greater  than  ever.  There  were 
more  and  more  trying  questions  to  be  settled  with 
Austria;  difficulties  even  more  subtle  with  the  Vatican 
and  the  clerical  party,  who  sought  to  save  every  old 
ecclesiastical  abuse  which  Cavour  wished  to  remedy. 

Nothing  could  be  more  unjust  than  their  attacks  upon 
him,  for  from  first  to  last,  against  all  provocations,  he 
was  singularly  faithful  to  the  Church.  When  he  felt 
that  the  old  monkish  abuses  must  be  stopped  and  sundry 
revenues  of  bishops  diminished,  he  used  the  revenues 
then  obtained,  not  for  civic  purposes,  greatly  as  they 
were  needed  by  the  state,  but  to  increase  the  stipends 
of  the  poorer  clergy.  No  maltreatment  by  the  Church 
ever  succeeded  in  provoking  him  to  take  anything  like 
revenge. 

The  annoyances  from  the  clerical  party  were,  indeed, 
vexatious.  The  bad  harvests,  the  coming  of  the  cholera, 
which  science  had  not  yet  disarmed,  and  the  death  of 
the  queen,  with  two  other  members  of  the  royal  family, 
all  were  exhibited  by  clerical  orators  as  a  divine  punish- 
ment of  Cavour's  government  for  its  crimes  against 
the  Church. 

But  he  presses  on  none  the  less  vigorously.  He  begins 
the  new  system  of  Italian  railways,  makes  commercial 
treaties  with  the  leading  European  powers,  alleviates 
the  suffering  of  the  poor  by  wiser  adjustment  of  tariffs, 
visits  the  cholera  hospitals,  cheers  the  patients  and  sees 
that  the  best  care  is  given  them,  and  in  the  midst  of 
ten  thousand  matters  of  business,  great  and  small,  car- 
ries on  continuously  his  negotiations  with  France  and 
England  looking  to  the  driving  of  Austria  out  of  Italy. 

Three  serious  difficulties  beset  him  ever  more  and 
more.  A  strong  industrial  party,  vexed  by  his  commer- 
cial treaties,  which  had  interfered  with  their  profits, 
insisted  that  he  was  ruining  the  country  financially;  the 


CAVOUR  365 

extreme  revolutionists,  vexed  by  his  coolness  toward 
fanatics,  insisted  that  he  was  ruining  the  country  politi- 
cally ;  the  all-pervading  clerical  party,  vexed  by  his  sup- 
pression of  sundry  monasteries  and  church  abuses, 
insisted  that  he  was  ruining  the  people  religiously. 
Calumnies  of  every  sort  were  invented :  he  was  making  a 
vast  fortune  out  of  the  people;  he  was  wrecking  the 
liberties  of  the  people;  he  was  destroying  the  souls  of 
the  people. 

He  took  it  all  cheerily  and  pressed  on,  taking  it  for 
granted  that  the  sober  second  thought  of  the  country 
would  do  him  justice. 

The  calumny  regarding  his  self-seeking  cleared  itself 
away  when  the  fact  became  known  that  on  his  accepting 
office  he  had  sold  all  his  stocks  and  shares  which  could 
be  affected  by  legislation  or  by  government  policy. 

His  method  of  working  through  the  various  parties 
in  Parliament  also  exposed  him  at  times  to  attack,  and 
even  to  obloquy.  From  first  to  last,  he  utterly  refused 
to  violate  the  constitution  of  his  country,  but  he  never 
hesitated  to  break  over  party  lines  and  precedents.  If 
he  could  not  work  with  one  party,  he  made  alliance  with 
another;  if  he  could  not  carry  the  whole  of  any  one 
party  with  him,  he  found  his  supporters  in  various 
parties.  To  a  man  of  less  genius  this  would  have  been 
perilous,  but  it  was  by  this  means,  especially,  that  he 
carried  through  many  of  his  most  important  measures, 
and  it  was  soon  felt  that  his  aims  were  those  of  his 
country,  and  that  he  rose  superior  to  all  parties.1 

i  For  an  able  discussion  of  this  characteristic  in  Cavour's  statesmanship, 
see  Zanichelli,  Introduction  to  his  Scritti  di  Cavour. 


Ill 

IN  January,  1855,  Cavour  made  the  first  in  a  series  of 
great  moves,  not  only  as  an  Italian,  but  as  a  European 
statesman.  The  Crimean  War  had  come.  Nicholas  I 
of  Russia,  a  fanatical  absolutist,  had  brought  together 
vast  and  showy  armies  and  navies,  had  concentrated 
great  power  in  the  Black  Sea,  and  had,  in  various  ways, 
shown  a  determination  to  take  possession  of  the  Turkish 
Empire  in  Europe  and  along  the  eastern  Mediterranean. 
Against  this,  France,  England,  and  Turkey  had  united 
and  had  sent  their  armies  into  the  Crimea.  Suddenly, 
in  January,  1855,  Europe  was  amazed  to  find  that  Cavour 
had  leagued  Piedmont  with  the  three  powers  against 
Eussia,  and  had  pledged  his  country,  with  its  four  mil- 
lions of  inhabitants,  to  send  20,000  troops  to  aid  them. 
Never  was  there  a  bolder  stroke  of  policy.  Against  it 
were  arrayed  all  his  old  enemies  in  Parliament  and  press, 
and,  with  them,  many  who  had  been  his  oldest  and  best 
friends.  The  aristocracy  naturally  favored  autocratic 
Russia;  the  democracy  naturally  dreaded  imperial 
France.  In  the  debates  conservatives  and  radicals  bit- 
terly attacked  him ;  indeed,  the  argument  seemed  against 
him.  How  absurd  to  plunge  his  country,  with  its  four 
millions  of  people,  into  a  war  against  Russia,  with  her 
hundred  millions!  How  wicked  to  join  in  a  war  with 
which  Piedmont  had  nothing  to  do!  How  slender  the 
chances  that  the  little  Italian  army  could  accomplish 
anything!  How  certain  that  the  only  possible  result 
would  be  the  impoverishment  of  the  little  kingdom ! 
How  inevitable  that  the  great  powers,  having  used  Pied- 

366 


CAVOUR  367 

inont,  would,  in  any  treaty  which  might  close  the  war, 
ignore  her  claims  and  fling  her  aside! 

Against  these  the  argument  of  Cavour  seemed  slender. 
His  main  reasons — the  necessity  of  obtaining  recogni- 
tion of  Piedmont  as  a  European  power,  of  securing 
an  alliance  with  the  two  great  powers  of  Western 
Europe  in  order  to  counter-match  Austria,  of  training 
an  Italian  army  for  a  new  struggle  for  independence 
— he  could  not  avow.  Those  which  he  could  avow 
were  anything  but  convincing.  Of  what  avail  to  say 
that  little  Piedmont  did  not  wish  Kussia  to  become  too 
strong  in  the  Mediterranean? 

But,  despite  all  this,  Cavour  defeated  his  adversaries. 
Having  won  over  King  Victor  Emmanuel  and  a  majority 
of  the  Parliament,  he  sent  the  little  Italian  army  to  the 
Crimea.  At  first  Europe  was  inclined  to  laugh  at  it. 
The  fable  of  the  Frog  and  the  Ox  was  recalled  in  count- 
less satires  and  caricatures.  Ill  fortune  came;  the 
cholera  sadly  depleted  the  little  force;  there  was  much 
delay  in  its  operations;  but,  finally,  came  news  that  it 
had  won  a  real  victory,  demanding  skill  and  hard  fight- 
ing, at  the  Tchernaya.  The  effect  was  magical.  The 
pride  of  all  Italy  was  aroused;  more  widely  than  ever 
Cavour  was  now  recognized  as  the  Italian  leader;  the 
people  at  large  began  to  divine  his  reasons  and  to  do  him 
justice;  more  and  more  the  idea  spread  throughout 
Europe  that  Italy  was  determined  to  have  her  independ- 
ence and  freedom,  and  that  somehow  Cavour  would 
secure  it. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  in  1856,  came  a  first  open 
triumph  of  his  policy:  Piedmont,  with  Cavour  as  her 
representative,  despite  all  the  opposition  of  Austria,  was 
admitted  to  the  Congress  of  Paris. 

To  many,  his  position  as  representing  so  small  a  state, 
among  colleagues  who  represented  great  empires,  seemed 


36S        SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ridiculous,  and  he,  knowing  that  it  must  be  so,  was  at 
first  very  quiet, — not  interfering  while  English,  French, 
Russian,  and  Austrian  statesmen  discussed  their  main 
interests.  But,  as  these  questions  went  deeper  and  grew 
broader,  his  opinion  was  sought;  and,  joining  in  the 
debate,  he  was  soon  seen  to  be  a  master.  This  recog- 
nition obtained,'  he  secured  a  sort  of  personal  alliance 
with  Napoleon  III;  forced  the  hand  of  his  minister, 
"Walewski,  and  so  brought  the  condition  of  Italy  and 
the  conduct  of  Austria  before  the  Conference.  Naturally 
Austria  protested  bitterly;  naturally,  also,  nothing  de- 
cisive for  Italy  was  then  done;  but  the  great  thing  was 
that  Cavour  had  spoken,  through  the  Conference,  to  all 
Europe.  More  and  more  it  was  seen  that  the  condition 
of  things  in  Italy  was  a  menace  to  European  civiliza- 
tion; that  every  town  in  the  Italian  peninsula  was  a 
centre  of  fanaticism,  and  that  revolution  might  spring 
forth  at  any  moment,  to  plague  all  the  great  powers. 

This  work  done,  Cavour  returned  to  Turin  and  opened 
a  new  era  in  the  industrial  history  of  southern  Europe 
by  beginning,  in  1857,  the  first  of  those  great  tunnels  un- 
der the  Alps  which  now  connect  Italy  with  the  north, — 
that  of  Mont  Cenis. 

But  in  January  of  the  following  year  came  a  calamity. 
Certain  Italian  fanatics,  at  their  head  Felice  Orsini, 
enraged  at  Napoleon  III,  who,  in  his  youth,  had  taken 
the  oaths  of  the  Carbonari,  and  at  the  height  of  his 
power  had  forgotten  them,  flung  a  bomb  beneath  his 
carriage.  The  immediate  result  was  that  many  inno- 
cent people  were  killed  and  wounded,  while  the  emperor 
escaped.  The  remote  result  was  a  decided  check  to  the 
better  feeling  toward  Italy,  a  bitter  distrust  of  Italians, 
a  feeling  that,  after  all,  Austria  might  be  right  in  aid- 
ing to  keep  down  a  people  which  resorted  to  such  cruelty 
and  folly. 

There  was  a  sequence  of  events  and  a  change  in  syni- 


CAVOUR  369 

pathies  such  as  the  world  at  large  experienced  during 
the  early  years  of  the  twentieth  century  regarding 
Russia:  at  first,  strong  sympathy  with  her  people  and 
its  representatives,  but  finally  disgust  at  their  folly  and 
cruelty,  and  a  preference  for  the  old  despotism  over  the 
new.  To  meet  this  feeling  Cavour  felt  obliged  to  bring 
into  the  Piedmontese  Parliament  strong  laws  against 
conspirators  and  assassins.  This  brought  upon  him 
increased  hostility  from  the  fanatical  element  in  Italy; 
but  one  thing  served  powerfully  to  recover  the  confidence 
of  Europe,  and  that  was  the  distinction  which  Cavour 
drew  most  powerfully  and  clearly  between  a  rational 
evolution  of  freedom,  on  one  side,  and  a  wild  plunge 
into  revolution,  on  the  other.  In  this  he  was  thoroughly 
honest.  Even  in  his  youth,  sketching  in  an  essay  his 
hopes  for  liberty  in  Italy  and  his  ideas  as  to  the  best 
means  of  realizing  them,  he  had  declared  against  sudden 
and  revolutionary  changes ;  to  put  it  in  the  language  of 
our  day,  he  supported  evolution  rather  than  revolution, 
and,  in  this  new  declaration  of  his  creed,  Europe  recog- 
nized him  as  a  true  statesman;  more  than  ever  it  was 
felt,  even  by  conservatives,  that  an  epidemic  of  destruc- 
tive and  sterile  revolution  could  best  be  avoided  by  re- 
leasing Italy  from  her  oppressors. 

Six  months  later  came  the  turning-point.  Very  pri- 
vately— indeed,  under  an  assumed  name — Cavour  visited 
Napoleon  III  at  the  little  French  watering-place  of 
Plombieres.  There  he  brought  to  bear  on  the  emperor 
all  his  skill,  in  showing  that  the  existing  order  of  things 
was  a  menace  to  the  Napoleonic  throne  as  well  as  to 
European  order,  and  so  cogently  that  the  French  mon- 
arch entered  into  a  secret  agreement  with  him  against 
Austria.1 

Eeturning  to  Italy,  he  met  at  Baden-Baden  the  Prince 

i  Cavour's  letter  giving  Victor  Emmanuel  full  details  of  the  eight  hours' 
interview  with  Napoleon  III  is  printed  in  Chiala,  Lettere,  vol.  ii. 
24 


370  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Regent  of  Prussia,  one  of  the  most  thoughtful  of  men, 
who  had  every  reason  to  dread  and  hate  revolution,  and 
who  afterward  became  William  I,  Emperor  of  Germany. 
Probably,  in  the  conversation  which  then  took  place,  an 
impression  was  made  which,  at  the  critical  moment  dur- 
ing the  struggle  which  followed,  did  something  to  delay 
the  interference  of  Prussia  in  behalf  of  Austria. 

Of  course,  in  all  this  effort  by  Cavour,  especially  with 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  III,  the  Italian  statesman  had  to 
encounter  the  open  hostility  and  the  secret  intrigues  of 
the  clerical  party  in  France  as  well  as  in  Italy.  Through 
the  Empress  Eugenie,  a  Spanish  woman  devoted  to  the 
Church,  they  had  a  hold  upon  the  French  court,  and  in 
a  thousand  ways  were  able  to  promote  what  they  con- 
sidered the  interests  of  Austria  and  of  the  Vatican. 

But,  on  the  first  of  January,  1859,  a  speech  made  by 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  in  the  presence  of  the  ambassa- 
dors at  the  Tuileries  foreshadowed  war  with  Austria, 
and,  in  a  similar  speech  at  Turin,  King  Victor  Emmanuel,, 
some  days  later,  showed  the  same  intention.  Warlike 
preparations  followed,  on  both  sides,  Cavour  being 
especially  active.  His  greatest  trouble  now  came  from 
the  vacillation  of  Napoleon  III.  The  emperor  had  many 
misgivings,  and  did  not  know  his  own  mind.  At  times 
he  was  bent  on  peace.  England  blunderingly  interfered 
and  offered  her  good  offices.  Worst  of  all,  Russia  in- 
terposed and  urged  a  special  conference  of  the  Euro- 
pean powers,  thus  influencing  the  emperor  so  far  that 
he  telegraphed  Cavour,  insisting  that  he  must  agree  to 
this.  Probably,  of  all  the  moments  in  his  life,  this  was 
to  Cavour  the  most  trying.  He  telegraphed  to  the  em- 
peror his  agreement;  but  so  bitter  was  his  regret  that 
his  friends  feared  his  suicide. 

For  a  moment  all  his  plans  seemed  wrecked;  but  he 
now  made  a  master  stroke.  Skillfully  he  provoked  Aus- 
tria to  insist  that  Piedmont  should  disarm  before  the 


CAVOUR  371 

assembling  of  the  council,  and  to  declare  that  if  she  did 
not  disarm  Austria  would  begin  war.     Then  Cavour  sim- 
ply refused  to  disarm — put  Austria  in  the  wrong,  forced 
her  to  fight,  and  forced  Napoleon  III  to  lead  French 
troops  into  Piedmont  against  her.     Fortunately,  too,  the 
generalship  of  Austria  proved  as  bad  as  her  diplomacy. 
By  a  rapid  movement  the  Austrians  might  have  occupied 
the  Piedmontese  capital;  but  there  was  delay,  the  allied 
armies  made  the  most  of  it,  and,  on  the  fourth  of  June 
they  won  the  terrible  battle  of  Magenta,  and  the  allied 
sovereigns  entered  Milan  as  conquerors.     Shortly  after- 
ward came  the  battle  of  Solferino,  and,  while  Napoleon 
III  showed  none  of  the  military  qualities  of  the  man 
whose  name  he  bore,   King  Victor  Emmanuel   gained 
especial  credit  for  bravery.    Austria  was  beaten  and  it 
seemed  certain  that  she  would  now  be  expelled  from  the 
Italian  Peninsula.     Suddenly   came   a   catastrophe.    In 
his  proclamation  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  Napoleon 
had  declared  that  Italy  should  be  set  free,  from  the  Alps 
to  the  Adriatic,  but,  after  these  tremendous  battles,  he 
halted.     He  evidently  feared  that  Prussia,  with  her  great 
power,  might  interfere.     He  also  saw  that  his  army  had, 
probably,  gained  more  prestige  in  the  battles  of  Magenta 
and  Solferino  than  it  was  likely  to  secure  thereafter. 
There  was  a  vein  of  sentiment  in  him  also,  such  as  the 
first  Napoleon  had  never  shown :  the  heaps  of  dead  and 
wounded  sickened  him,  and  he  dwelt  plaintively  on  the 
fact  that  he  had  lost  ten  thousand  men.     The  Austrians 
had  retreated  within  the  strong  "quadrilateral"  formed 
by  their  four  great  fortresses  in  Northern  Italy,  and 
thenceforth  war  must  be  a  slow,  painful  effort  against 
Austria,  the  Papacy,  Naples,  and,  possibly,  Prussia. 

Therefore  it  was  that  suddenly,  without  notice  to  Ca- 
vour, Napoleon  III  arranged  a  meeting  with  the  Austrian 
emperor  at  Villafranca,  and  patched  up  a  peace.  In  this 
he  set  Lombardy  free  from  Austria  and  virtually  gave  it, 


372  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

with  Milan  as  its  centre,  to  Piedmont,  but  he  allowed 
Austria  still  to  retain  her  hold  upon  Venice,  agreed  that 
the  principal  petty  despots  of  Central  Italy  might  re- 
turn to  their  dominions,  and  provided  for  a  Central  Ital- 
ian Confederacy,  to  be  presided  over  by  the  Pope.1 

For  a  time,  Cavour  felt  that  all  was  lost.  He  seemed 
stunned  and  dazed.  He  had,  indeed,  taken  Lombardy 
out  of  the  clutch  of  Austria;  but  he  had  expected  far 
more.  He  had  relied  upon  the  emperor's  word  that  Italy 
should  be  "free  from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic."  In  a 
stormy  interview  with  Victor  Emmanuel  he  denounced 
the  whole  procedure,  protested  against  the  treaty,  begged 
the  king  to  refuse  to  sign  it,  and  to  press  on  with  the 
Italian  army  alone.  Fortunately  Cavour  was  in  this  un- 
successful ;  and  now,  sooner  than  attach  his  signature  to 
the  treaty,  he  retired  from  the  ministry  and,  apparently, 
gave  up  political  life.  He  even  left  his  country,  went  to 
Switzerland,  and  settled  down  for  a  time  with  his  old 
friends  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Leman.  But  soon  his  old 
vigor — indeed,  his  old  cheerfulness — returned.  "We 
have  the  testimony  of  those  who  were  then  with  him,  to 
the  effect  that  he  soon  recovered  all  his  elasticity  and 
devoted  himself,  even  more  earnestly  than  before,  to 
thinking  out  new  ways  and  means  of  accomplishing  his 
great  purpose — despite  what  he  and  the  Italians  regarded 
as  the  emperor's  treachery.2 

i  For  letters  and  dispatches  of  Cavour  and  his  agents,  revealing  his 
skill  in  disentangling  and  solving  the  enormous  difficulties  before  and 
during  the  war  of  1859,  see  Bianchi,  La  Politique  de  Cavour,  pp.  334  and 
following. 

For  a  thoughtful  statement  of  the  motives  of  Napoleon  III,  in  nego- 
tiating at  Villafranca,  see  Zaniehelli,  Cavour,  cap.  ix;   also  Mazade. 

For  curious  details,  see  General  Fleury's  account  of  his  secret  mission 
from  Napoleon  III  to  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph,  Souvenirs,  vol.  ii,  chap, 
li. 

2  For  an  intensely  interesting  account  of  Cavour's  retirement  to 
Switzerland  at  this  time,  written  by  one  almost  constantly  with  him 
there,  see  De  La  Rive,  Cavour,  cap.  xiii. 


CAVOUR  373 

At  the  Zurich  Congress  which  followed,  Napoleon  III 
made  proposals  utterly  incompatible  with  Cavour's  idea 
of  a  united  Italy.  The  emperor,  evidently  affected  by 
the  need  of  conciliating  his  French  priesthood,  suggested 
various  plans,  differing  from  one  another  in  details,  but 
all  containing  hints,  more  or  less  vague,  at  carrying  out 
his  version  of  Gioberti's  old  idea  and  establishing  a  con- 
federacy mainly  of  four  states :  namely,  Piedmont,  includ- 
ing Lombardy ;  Venice,  with  the  minor  principalities  put 
back  under  Austrian  slavery ;  the  Papal  dominions ;  Na- 
ples, with  Sicily,  and,  possibly,  in  addition,  a  little  king- 
dom to  be  carved  out  of  Tuscany  and  its  neighbors  for 
his  wretched  cousin,  Prince  Jerome  Napoleon — the  Pope 
to  be  president  over  the  whole. 

Curious  was  it,  in  connection  with  this,  that  Gioberti 
himself,  the  renowned  author  of  the  confederation  idea, 
had  now  fully  renounced  it,  had,  indeed,  avowed  a  sort 
of  loathing  for  it,  and,  in  his  Rinnovamento,  published 
shortly  before  his  death,  had  demonstrated  that  in  his 
old  plan  there  was  no  longer  any  hope,  but  that  Italy 
must  be  united  as  a  single  kingdom,  with  Piedmont  at  its 
head. 

Happily,  events  in  the  Italian  Peninsula  were  now  far 
beyond  Napoleon's  reach.  Though  the  Villafranca  ar- 
rangement had  contemplated  the  restoration  of  the  Aus- 
tro-Italian  princelings,  it  had  provided  no  means  of 
accomplishing  this,  and  the  people  throughout  Middle 
Italy — indeed,  throughout  the  whole  of  Italy — had  de- 
termined that  they  would  not  be  put  back  under  the  old 
tyranny  and  would  never  allow  the  Austrian  satraps  to 
return:  the  masterful  influence  of  Cavour  prevailed 
again  Napoleon  III  on  one  side  and  the  Red  Republicans 
on  the  other. 

Events  followed  fast.  Cavour  was  soon  drawn  out  of 
his  retirement.  In  March,  1860,  eight  different  districts 
elected  him  to  the  approaching  preliminary  Parliament, 


374  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

and  again  he  began  his  labors.  There  was  much  difficulty 
in  keeping  the  hands  of  Napoleon  III  off  the  growing 
movements  for  independence  and  liberty  in  Middle  Italy, 
but  Cavour  was  skillful  and  vigorous,  and  the  main  dis- 
tricts of  the  Papal  Kingdom,  Tuscany,  and  adjacent  divi- 
sions of  Italy,  by  overwhelming  majorities,  voted  them- 
selves out  from  under  Austria,  the  Pope,  and  their 
various  princelings,  and  into  the  new  Kingdom  of  Italy. 

This  came  as  an  embarrassing  argument  to  Napoleon 
III.  For  when,  as  President,  he  had  sought  the  imperial 
power  in  France,  he  had  appealed  to  the  French  people, 
and  his  title  to  sovereignty  rested  upon  just  such  a  great 
popular  majority  as  this  which  the  people  of  Central 
Italy  now  gave  Victor  Emmanuel.  The  plebiscite,  in 
these  regions  of  Italy  which  Napoleon  III  sought  to  give 
back  to  their  old  masters,  now  did  its  work  thoroughly 
against  him ;  in  every  case  the  vote  against  the  old  order 
of  things,  and  in  behalf  of  annexation  to  the  Italian  King- 
dom, was  virtually  unanimous. 

Meantime,  in  the  spring  of  1860,  symptoms  of  revolu- 
tion appeared  in  Palermo,  and  Bourbon  power  was 
clearly  waning  in  Sicily.  On  the  11th  of  May,  Garibaldi, 
with  his  famous  "Thousand,"  landed  in  the  island,  and, 
after  a  series  of  brilliant  victories  over  the  Neapolitan 
king,  declared  himself  dictator  in  the  name  of  Victor 
Emmanuel. 

In  this  matter,  without  doubt,  Cavour  swerved  excep- 
tionally from  his  fundamental  creed,  for,  while  he  did  not 
promote  the  beginnings  of  Garibaldi's  invasion  of  Sicily, 
he  had  not  opposed  it,  and,  when  it  was  under  way,  he 
had  aided  it. 

More  than  this,  he  now  promoted  insurrection  in  Lower 
Italy,  partly  to  prepare  the  way  for  Garibaldi,  partly,  no 
doubt,  to  make  good  the  claims  of  United  Italy  against  a 
Garibaldian  dictatorship. 

Southern  Italy  was  fully  ripe  for  revolution ;  every 


CAVOUR  375 

sane  mind  in  Europe  must  have  expected  it.  As  far 
back  as  1850  and  1851,  Mr.  Gladstone,  making  a  long  stay 
in  Naples,  closely  studied  the  methods  of  King  Ferdinand 
II,  and  revealed  them  in  his  "Two  Letters  to  the  Earl 
of  Aberdeen,"  which,  in  pamphlet  form,  were  circulated 
throughout  Europe  and  America.  Gladstone  had  at- 
tended the  treason  trials,  visited  the  prisoners,  talked 
with  men  of  light  and  leading,  and  his  revelations  were 
damning.  The  administration  of  the  law  was  a  cruel 
farce,  the  government  freely  bribed  witnesses,  the  prisons 
were  filthy  and  crowded  with  men  merely  suspected  of 
liberalism.  Former  members  of  the  king's  cabinet,  pro- 
fessors in  the  University,  respected  citizens  of  all  pro- 
fessions, were  languishing  in  dungeons  or  working  in  the 
chain  gang.  Among  these,  one  who  attracted  especial 
attention  was  Baron  Carlo  Poerio,  a  former  minister, 
whom  Gladstone  characterized  as  "a  refined  and  accom- 
plished gentleman,  a  respected  and  blameless  character,' * 
and  who  was  imprisoned,  with  fifteen  others,  in  a  room 
less  than  fifteen  feet  long  and  only  eight  feet  high;  and 
there  these  men  lived  night  and  day,  always  chained  two 
by  two.  Still  another  was  Settembrini,  one  of  the  most 
beloved  and  respected  professors  in  the  University  of 
Naples,  who  had  sat  with  the  king  in  council,  but  who? 
having  incurred  the  monarch's  dislike  by  his  liberalism, 
was,  at  this  time,  brought  out  to  work  in  the  chain  gang 
in  front  of  the  Royal  Palace — His  Majesty  occasionally 
going  out  upon  the  balcony  to  enjoy  the  sight  of  him.1 

i  Of  all  the  memoirs  of  this  period,  those  of  Settembrini  seem  to  me  ta 
throw  the  clearest  light  into  the  methods  of  Italian  tyranny.  The  account 
of  his  rescue  by  his  son  is  one  of  the  most  fascinating  recitals  in  all  his- 
tory. See  Settembrini,  Ricordanze  delta  mia  Vita,  vol.  ii,  pp.  356  to  the 
end.  For  an  elaborate  account  of  the  reigns  of  "Bomba"  and  his  son, 
1855-60,  see  R.  de  Cesare's  authoritative  La  Fine  di  un  Regno,  Citta  di 
Castello,  1895. 

As  to  Gladstone's  revelations  and  their  effect,  see  .John  Morley,  Life 
of  Gladstone,  vol.  i,  chap.  vi.  The  Tico  Letters  to  Lord  Aberdeen — in 
Italian  translation — are  given  in  Zini,  Storia,  etc.,  vol.  ii,  p.  i,  pp.  247  and. 


376  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Gladstone's  denunciations  of  this  whole  system  culmi- 
nated in  his  declaration  that  it  was  "the  negation  of 
God,  erected  into  a  system  of  government."  But  all 
opposition  was  unheeded  by  Neapolitan  royalty.  The 
Holy  Alliance  found  no  fault  with  it,  and  the  Emperor 
Nicholas  of  Russia  especially  honored  it,  petted  its  envoy 
at  the  Winter  Palace,  and  sent  the  king  two  colossal 
statues  in  bronze,  representing  powerful  steeds  conquered 
by  strong  men  and  typifying  the  curbing  of  resistance 
to  authority.  These  were  placed  at  the  entrance  of  the 
Royal  Palace  and  there  they  remain  even  to  this  day. 
It  may  be  added  that  within  a  short  distance  of  them  now 
stands  a  noble  statue  of  Carlo  Poerio.1 

In  1859  Ferdinand  died  and  there  had  come  to  the 
throne  his  son,  Francis  II,  a  poor  creature,  moulded  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  his  father's  image  by  his  eminent 
tutor,  Archbishop  Apuzzo,  and  by  his  Jesuit  instructors ; 
and,  during  his  reign  of  two  years,  he  proved  himself 
their  apt  pupil. 

In  the  summer  of  1860,  he  gave  a  famous  exhibition  of 
tragedy  and  farce.  Garibaldi,  with  his  "  Thousand, " 
having  conquered  King  Francis's  realm  of  Sicily,  despite 
the  30,000  troops  stationed  in  the  island,  invaded  the 

following.  The  present  writer,  being  in  Naples  five  years  after  Glad- 
stone, heard  his  strongest  statements  fully  corroborated  by  the  American 
minister  at  that  post — Robert  Dale  Owen — a  man  of  the  highest  character. 

i  A  similar  pair  of  statues  was  sent  by  Nicholas  to  his  brother-in-law, 
Frederick  William  IV,  of  Prussia,  in  approval  of  that  monarch's  opposi- 
tion to  constitutional  liberty.  To  one  of  these  statues  the  Berlin  wits 
gave  the  name  "Progress  Checked,"  and  to  the  other,  "Retrogression  En- 
couraged"; and  they  have  adorned  the  entrance  of  the  Royal  Palace  at 
Berlin  from  that  day  to  this.  The  originals,  by  Clodt,  stand  on  the 
Nevsky  Bridge  at  St.  Petersburg. 

The  favor  shown  King  Ferdinand's  minister  at  St.  Petersburg  was  a 
matter  of  jocose  remark  in  the  diplomatic  corps  during  the  first  official 
residence  of  the  present  writer  in  that  city.  The  representative  seemed 
intellectually  well  suited  to  his  duties,  which  were,  apparently,  little 
more  than  to  keep  the  Czar  assured  of  King  Ferdinand's  fidelity  to  the 
most  extreme  theories  and  practices  of  despotism. 


CAVOUR  377 

mainland,  and  the  young  despot  attempted  to  make  head- 
way against  them  by  time-honored  Bourbon  methods. 
Bringing  out  one  of  the  old  constitutions  which  his  father 
and  grandfather  had  sworn  to  and  violated,  he  avowed 
his  willingness,  nay,  his  wish,  to  swear  to  observe  it. 
But,  alas  for  him!  his  fathers  had  taught  the  people  of 
Southern  Italy  the  worthlessness  of  Bourbon  promises. 
More  than  that,  it  was  speedily  made  known  how  this 
poor  young  king  had  been  educated.  The  Catechismo 
Filosofico,  as  edited  by  his  tutor,  Archbishop  Apuzzo,  was 
republished  and  circulated  far  and  wide,  and  it  called  the 
attention  of  Italy  and  the  world  to  the  fact  that  the  king, 
with  the  approval  of  his  father,  had  been  taught  by  this 
ecclesiastical  tutor  that  no  oaths  sworn  by  a  sovereign  to  a 
constitution  are  binding,  not  even  those  made  to  secure 
a  throne ;  that  the  moment  a  man  is  made  king  he  is  re- 
sponsible to  God  alone,  and  that  no  oaths  to  his  people 
can  hold  him.  Jesuit  casuistry  now  recoiled  upon  its 
authors ;  the  movement  for  Italian  liberty  in  Naples  car- 
ried all  before  it.  In  the  first  days  of  September,  1860, 
King  Francis  fled  to  the  fortress  of  Gaeta ;  and,  while  he 
there  showed  himself  to  be  feeble  and  worthless,  his 
young  Bavarian  queen  won  the  admiration  of  Europe  by 
virtually  taking  command  and  holding  that  fortress  dur- 
ing six  months.  Then  the  royal  couple  escaped,  and,  hav- 
ing for  a  time  settled  in  Rome,  were  able  to  punish  their 
former  subjects  by  sending  bands  of  brigands  among 
them,  robbing,  burning,  and  murdering;  but,  this  being 
finally  ended,  they  retreated  to  Paris,  and  were  heard  of 
no  more  save  in  a  romance  which  exhibited  them  to  the 
mingled  derision  and  pity  of  the  world.1 

i  As  to  the  Apuzzo  Catechism,  the  edition  in  my  possession  is  that  of 
1861;  the  title-page,  however,  speaks  of  it  as  a  reprint  from  the  edition  of 
1850.  For  the  authorship  of  the  work  and  for  illustrations  of  its  teach- 
ings, see  pp.  332-337  above. 

The  romance  referred  to  is  by  Daudet,  Les  Rois  en  Exil. 


378  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

On  September  7,  1860,  Garibaldi  entered  Naples;  and 
now  began  a  new  complication — for  Cavour  perhaps  the 
most  wearisome  of  his  whole  life.  With  the  Garibaldian 
army  had  come  Italian  extremists  of  every  sort,  who 
were  now  reinforced  by  many  others,  in  the  midst  of 
them  Mazzini,  and  these,  in  the  interest  of  their  vaguely 
dreamed  republic,  did  their  worst  against  the  annexa- 
tion of  Naples  and  Sicily  to  the  Italian  Kingdom,  and 
won  to  some  of  their  most  troublesome  ideas  the  support 
of  Garibaldi. 

The  Pope,  too,  gave  great  trouble.  He  obtained  an 
army  by  summoning  foreign  volunteers,  among  them 
many  dismissed  from  the  French  army,  put  them  under 
Lamoriciere,  who  had  won  respect  as  a  French  general, 
and  did  his  best  to  make  Italian  unity  impossible.  It 
was  serious,  indeed,  for  Cavour  to  find  arrayed  against 
him  this  triple  foe — the  Pope,  appealing  to  the  religious 
world,  Mazzini,  appealing  to  lazzaroni  republicans,  and 
Garibaldi,  flushed  with  his  great  victories ;  but  with  each 
and  all  these  foes  he  at  once  grappled  vigorously.  Next 
to  the  French  alliance  it  was  his  greatest  stroke  of  policy. 
Not  waiting  for  Garibaldi  to  come  northward,  he  sends 
an  Italian  army  into  the  Papal  States,  and,  at  Castel- 
fidardo,  defeats  Lamoriciere  and  disperses  the  last  of 
papal  armies.  He  strikes  no  less  boldly  at  Naples — 
pushing  on  Italian  troops,  with  Victor  Emmanuel  at 
their  head,  to  cooperate  with  Garibaldi,  but,  at  the  same 
time,  to  assert,  against  the  great  adventurer,  the  claims 
of  united  Italy,  to  disperse  anarchic  forces,  and  to  estab- 
lish the  claims  of  right  reason.  Unmindful  of  the  pre- 
tended republican  or  democratic  proclivities  of  the 
Neapolitan  lazzaroni,  who  had  shown  themselves  as  ready 
to  murder  and  plunder  with  hurrahs  for  liberty  as  with 
cheers  for  King  Bomba,  he  carries  through  Parliament 
measures  incorporating  into  the  new  nation  Naples, 
Sicily,  the  main  part  of  the  Papal  territory,  Tuscany, 


CAVOUR  379 

and  the  rest,  until  he  has  brought  into  it  all  Italy  save 
Venice  and  Rome.1 

And  now,  in  February,  1861,  having  assembled  in  Turin 
the  first  Italian  Parliament,  he  fully  committed  it  to  all 
his  great  measures,  and,  above  all,  to  a  United  Italy  and 
to  Victor  Emmanuel  as  its  constitutional  king. 

The  rapidity,  vigor,  and  inspiration  of  Cavour's  meas- 
ures carried  everything  before  them.  He  was  now  presi- 
dent of  the  new  Ministry  of  the  Italian  Kingdom,  and 
summoned  to  his  side  as  colleagues  the  foremost  men  of 
the  whole  peninsula,  among  them  such  men  as  Minghetti, 
Peruzzi,  and  de  Sanctis. 

There  was,  indeed,  a  painful  side  to  all  this,  for  Ca- 
vour  had,  by  some  of  the  measures  which  he  had  felt 
obliged  to  take,  separated  himself  from  many  old  and 
devoted  friends;  and  especially  had  he  given  offense  to 
some  of  the  best  of  these  by  his  apparent  relinquishment 
of  his  old  ideas  against  revolutionary  methods. 

Even  more  painful  to  him  was  the  course  of  Garibaldi, 
who  bitterly  resented  various  things  in  Cavour's  states- 
manship, and,  above  all,  his  surrender  of  Nice  to  Napo- 
leon III.  In  that  town  Garibaldi  was  born,  and  he  com- 
plained that  Cavour  had  made  him  a  foreigner  in  his  own 
birthplace.  Garibaldi  urged  the  king  to  dismiss  Cavour 
from  the  ministry,  issued  letters  against  him,  and  finally 
entered  Parliament  in  order  to  attack  him. 

All  this  was,  indeed,  disheartening.  Nearly  a  year  be- 
fore, Cavour,  in  one  of  the  most  powerful  and  brilliant 
speeches  in  parliamentary  history,  had  shown  why  the 
cession  of  Nice  and  Savoy  to  France  was  an  absolutely 
necessary  condition  to  the  establishment  of  Italian  unity. 
At  times  pathetic,  at  times  humorous,  at  times  eloquent, 
he  had  defended  his  policy  and  convinced  the  country. 

1  For  the  masterly  letter  of  the  king  (Cavour)  to  Pope  Pius — and  the 
bitter  reply  of  the  latter — on  the  Italian  invasion  of  the  Papal  territory, 
see  Zini,  Storia  d'ltalia,  vol.  ii,  pt.  ii,  pp.  574-577. 


3S0  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

He  indeed  lamented  the  necessity  of  ceding  these  terri- 
tories, and  this  feeling  he  expressed  most  nobly ;  but,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  both  Savoy  and  the  city  of  Nice  had 
long  been  more  French  than  Italian.  In  both,  French 
was  the  language  mainly  spoken,  and  many  of  their  depu- 
ties in  parliament  could  speak  no  other.  The  commerce 
and  the  sympathies  of  both  were  largely,  if  not  mainly, 
French.  Savoy,  though  the  cradle  of  the  royal  house  of 
Italy,  was  largely  in  the  hands  of  priests,  and  constantly 
in  opposition  to  Italian  aspirations.  Nice  was  rapidly 
becoming  a  French  pleasure  ground.  That  speech  of 
Cavour  had,  to  all  appearance,  settled  this  question  and 
opened  the  way  for  other  questions  far  more  pressing; 
but  now  all  must  begin  again  and  in  a  way  that  was  dis- 
couraging and  even  exasperating.1 

Despite  all  this,  the  triumphant  general  now  loudly 
denounced  the  triumphant  statesman  as  one  who  had 
flung  away  Italian  territory,  had  made  war  between 
brothers,  had  betrayed  liberty;  and  he  united  with  those 
who  denounced  Cavour  for  selling  to  France  Savoy,  the 
cradle  of  the  new  Italian  monarchy.  Parts  of  the  debate 
were  very  painful ;  but  Cavour  thoroughly  controlled  him- 
self and  rose  quietly  above  all  passion  and  bitterness. 
He  admitted  that  the  resentment  of  Garibaldi  for  the 
sacrifice  of  his  birthplace  was  natural,  declared  that  he 
could  not  blame  him  for  it,  and,  at  the  crisis  of  the  at- 
tack, he  remained  silent.  But  others  came  to  his  defense. 
The  cruel  injustice  of  these  charges  was  manifest  to 
every  thinking  Italian.  The  speech  of  Ricasoli,  dis- 
cussing the  whole  situation  and  Cavour 's  part  in  it,  has 

i  For  Cavour's  main  speech  in  full,  with  indications  of  his  sway  over 
his  audience  by  his  wit,  humor,  knowledge  of  affairs,  and  eloquence,  see 
Artom  and  Blanc,  Cavour  in  Parlamento,  pp.  557  and  following.  For  Ca- 
vour's reasons  for  the  cession  of  Nice  and  Savoy,  as  presented  diplomat- 
ically to  Europe,  see  his  despatch  to  Nigra,  given  in  Zini,  Storia  d'ltalia, 
vol.  ii,  pt.  ii,  p.  587;  also  Countess  E.  Martinengo  Cesaresco,  The  Liberation 
of  Italy,  chap,  xiii,  New  York,  1894. 


CAVOUR  381 

taken  its  place  among  the  masterpieces  of  Italian  elo- 
quence; and  among  those  who  followed  him  on  the  same 
side  were  men  who  had  long  differed  with  Cavour. 

It  looked  for  a  time  as  if  civil  war  between  Northern 
and  Southern  Italy  might  ensue ;  but  leaders  on  both  sides 
showed  a  determination  to  allay  this  bitterness,  and 
finally,  in  April,  1861,  there  came  a  reconciliation — Ca- 
vour and  Garibaldi  continuing  to  revere,  and  to  distrust 
each  other. 

Now  drew  on  Cavour 's  final  struggle — his  effort  to  se- 
cure Borne  as  the  national  capital;  but  the  Vatican  re- 
jected every  proposal,  and  the  emperor,  to  please  the 
clerical  party  in  France,  interposed  obstacles  to  every 
measure  tending  to  make  Italy  united  and  independent. 
There  constantly  rose  in  the  emperor's  mind  the  old 
vague  dreams  of  an  Italian  confederacy  with  the  Pope 
at  its  head,  with  a  restoration  of  Bourbons  here  and 
Hapsburgs  there,  and,  perhaps,  a  Bonaparte  in  Tuscany 
— all  keeping  the  country  disunited  and  weak,  making  it 
for  ever  an  easy  prey  to  French  intrigue  or  force.  But, 
against  both  Pope  and  Emperor,  Cavour  steadily  main- 
tained his  policy  of  a  United  Italy  under  a  single  head 
and  with  a  liberal  constitution,  and  he  gained  constantly 
upon  his  adversaries. 

VThile  the  steady  opposition  of  the  Vatican  to  every 
proposal  for  placing  the  national  capital  at  Rome  was 
vexatious,  and  the  attitude  of  the  emperor  still  more  so, 
there  came  a  piece  of  great  good  fortune  to  the  Italian 
cause.  This  was  an  occurrence  apparently  most  trifling, 
and  in  a  Roman  provincial  city ;  yet  of  all  things  that  ever 
alienated  public  opinion — Jew  and  Gentile,  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  throughout  the  world — from  the  Papal  pol- 
icy, this  proved  the  most  powerful.  On  the  24th  of 
June,  1858,  a  devout  servant,  Anna  Morisi,  entrusted 
with  the  care  of  a  little  child,  Edgar  Mortara,  in  a  Jew- 
ish family  of  Bologna,  and  anxious  to  save  the  child's 


3S2  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

soul,  had  entered  into  relations  with  the  Holy  Inquisition 
— the  result  being  that  a  priest  was  sent  who  baptized 
the  infant  and  then  carried  off  both  the  maid  and  the 
child. 

The  agonized  parents  begging  for  the  return  of  their 
son,  the  pontifical  authority  threatened  to  put  into  force 
against  them  certain  obsolete  laws  which  punished  Jews 
for  employing  Catholic  servants.  The  parents  were  not 
allowed  even  to  see  their  child.  These  facts  were  con- 
cealed until  about  the  end  of  August,  1858,  when  the 
story  came  out  and  ran  like  wildfire  throughout  Italy  and, 
indeed,  throughout  Christendom.  Everywhere  the  press 
protested  against  this  monstrous  iniquity,  save  in  Aus- 
tria, where  the  government  forbade  any  public  mention 
of  it.  In  France  the  remonstrances  became  especially 
bitter,  and  Veuillot,  the  most  eminent  of  French  ultra- 
montane editors,  made  matters  still  worse  by  defending 
the  abduction  of  the  little  Mortara  as  in  conformity  with 
the  traditions  of  the  Church,  and  by  calling  attention  to 
the  fact  that  this  right  of  abduction  had  been  claimed,  as 
against  Protestant  children,  by  some  of  the  most  eminent 
authorities  of  the  French  Church,  under  the  old  Bourbon 
monarchy. 

All  this  but  served  to  increase  the  indignation  of 
Christendom,  and  public  opinion  became  so  strong  that 
both  France  and  Great  Britain  made  remonstrances  at 
the  Vatican.  All  to  no  purpose.  The  Papal  Govern- 
ment simply  inserted  in  its  official  organ — the  Civilta 
Cattolica — a  note  declaring  the  question  ''purely  spirit- 
ual"; the  Pope  had  no  response  to  make  to  foreign  pow- 
ers. This  increased  the  general  indignation,  crippled 
the  French  clerical  party  in  its  efforts  to  prevent  the 
union  of  France  with  Italy  during  the  following  year, 
and  vastly  increased  the  number  of  those  who  hoped  and 
prayed  that  the  war  of  1859  might  result  in  the  substi- 
tution of  lay  for  clerical  government  at  Rome. 


CAVOUR  383 

Two  years  later  the  Mortara  family  brought  suit 
against  Anna  Morisi  for  the  abduction.  To  this  the 
Papal  Court  simply  answered  that  the  young  woman  had 
entered  a  convent,  and  that  the  whole  matter  was 
"purely  spiritual."  Finally  Prussia  showed  a  disposi- 
tion to  intervene.  This  seemed  so  serious  that,  in  some 
mysterious  manner,  the  Mortara  family  were  persuaded 
to  withdraw  their  suit,  and  were  even  offered  restitution 
of  the  boy  if  they  would  consent  to  be  baptized.  Mean- 
time the  boy  had  become  fully  converted  and  the  matter 
ceased  to  occupy  public  attention;  but  probably  nothing 
did  more  than  this  apparently  petty  matter  to  produce 
the  feeling  which  at  last  enabled  Italy  to  make  its  capital 
at  Rome,  without  the  slightest  effective  remonstrance 
from  any  human  being.  Nor  was  this  the  only  result. 
Whenever  any  European  nation  since  that  time  has 
established  unsectarian  public  schools  and  the  priest- 
hood has  protested  against  them,  in  the  name  of  the 
"Rights  of  Parents"  as  regards  the  education  of  their 
children,  the  Mortara  case  has  been  cited  as  a  sufficient 
answer.1 

But  in  these  efforts  for  Italian  Unity  Cavour  sacrificed 
his  life.  His  daily  work  was  a  wonder  to  all  who  knew 
him.  During  various  periods  he  held  several  of  the  most 
important  ministries  at  the  same  time,  and  constantly 
had  to  deal  with  intricate  problems  in  every  part  of  Italy 
and  in  many  parts  of  Europe.  At  these  he  wrought 
night  and  day — in  his  bed-chamber,  at  his  work-table, 
in  the  audience  rooms,  in  the  King's  Cabinet,  at  the 
various  ministries,  in  the  parliamentary  debates — every- 
where; but  so  easily,  so  cheerily,  that  he  and  all  about 

i  For  the  Mortara  case,  see  Vollet,  in  La  Grande  Encyclopedic  Also 
Zini,  Storia  d'ltalia,  vol.  i,  pt.  i,  pp.  978-984.  Also,  as  revealing  the  im- 
pulse given  by  it  against  the  temporal  power  of  the  Papacy,  Tivorani, 
L'ltalia  degli  Italiani,  1849-1859,  tome  i,  p.  198.  The  best  resume  of  the 
whole  affair  is  in  R.  de  Cesare's  Roma  e  lo  Stato  Romano,  1850-1870, 
Rome,  2  vols.,  1907. 


384  SEVEN  GKEAT  STATESMEN 

him  were  for  a  time  deceived  as  to  his  physical  condition.1 

Arrived  at  the  age  of  fifty,  in  full  middle  life,  he  sud- 
denly found  himself  unable  to  go  on.  There  was  a  pain- 
ful illness  of  a  week — his  powers  had  at  last  completely 
failed  him.  Pathetic  were  his  attempts  to  grasp  again 
the  various  pressing  Italian  questions.  Touching  were 
his  final  interviews  with  his  dearest  friends  and  with  the 
king.  Italy  and  its  future  were  in  all  his  thoughts. 
During  the  last  visit  of  Victor  Emmanuel  to  his  bedside, 
the  dying  statesman  dwelt  long  upon  the  difficulties  yet  to 
be  encountered,  but  always  hopefully. 

He  was  upborne  by  his  faith  in  eternal  justice.  Just 
before  this  final  illness  Castelli  had  asked  him  how  much 
time  he  would  require  for  bringing  Rome  into  the  new 
Italy.  Cavour  turned — looked  Castelli  full  in  the  face — 
"stood  silent  a  full  minute  and  said,  'Two  years.'  "2 

In  all  his  last  conversations  he  held  steadily  to 
his  declaration,  "Italy  is  made" — "L' Italia  e  fatta." 
Most  earnestly  he  urged  that  no  despotic  measures  should 
be  used  under  any  pretext.  Especially  touching  was  his 
reference  to  the  Neapolitans,  his  plea  for  patience  with 
them,  corrupted  as  they  had  been  by  centuries  of  despot- 
ism. 

Most  touching  of  all  was  the  final  scene.  Some  years 
before,  in  the  time  of  the  cholera,  bearing  in  mind  the 
refusal  of  the  Archbishop  of  Turin  to  grant  the  last  con- 
solations of  the  Church  to  Santa  Rosa,  Cavour  had  se- 
cured from  a  kindly  friar,  "Brother  James,"  a  promise 
to  attend  him  in  his  dying  hours.     This  promise  was  re- 

1  The  present  writer  knew  personally  three  of  Cavour's  colleagues,  Min- 
ghetti,  Peruzzi,  and  Count  Nigra,  and  was  informed  by  each  of  these  that 
Cavour  very  frequently  summoned  between  four  and  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning  those  who  worked  with  him.  Each  of  these  statesmen  dwelt  on 
Cavour's  enormous  capacity  for  work,  on  his  quickness,  his  skill,  his 
thoroughness,  and  on  the  fact  that,  toward  the  last,  he  virtually  gave  no 
time  to  rest. 

2  For  the  reply  of  Cavour  to  Castelli,  see  the  latter's  Ricordi,  p.  37. 


CAVOUR  385 

deemed,  and,  in  the  final  moment,  Cavour  grasped  the 
friar's  hand  and  uttered  his  last  words — "Brother, 
brother,  a  free  Church  in  a  free  State"  {Frate,  frate, 
libera  chiesa  in  libero  stato). 

Thus,  in  leaving  the  world,  he  asserted  the  great  prin- 
ciple for  which  he  had  so  long  labored  and  which  he  felt 
sure  gave  the  best  of  guarantees  to  religion  as  well  as  to 
patriotism.  His  words  are  still  the  religious  watchword 
of  Italian  patriots. 

In  thus  showing  his  respect  for  the  religion  in  which 
he  had  been  born  and  bred,  he  was,  undoubtedly,  actuated 
both  by  patriotic  and  by  religious  motives.  During  his 
last  hours  he  had  said,  "I  die  as  a  good  Christian;  I  have 
never  done  evil  to  any  one." 

Sad  is  it  to  record  the  fact  that  the  good  priest  was 
severely  punished  for  his  kindly  act — was  summoned  to 
Eome,  removed  from  his  little  church,  and  sent  to  end 
his  life  in  a  distant  monastery. 

The  completion  of  Cavour 's  work  for  the  unity  of  Italy 
followed  as  if  under  a  natural  law.  He  was  succeeded  by 
noble  men,  who,  in  their  turn,  were  succeeded  by  men 
sometimes  of  high  and  sometimes  of  doubtful  character. 
During  the  nine  years  following  his  death,  the  struggle 
for  complete  unity  continued  and  became  a  fearful  tangle 
of  motives  and  events — at  times  heroic,  at  times  scanda- 
lous, but  all  tending  toward  Cavour 's  ideal.  During  this 
whole  period  Garibaldi  continued  to  play  his  astonishing 
part,  sometimes  brilliantly,  sometimes  absurdly,  but  ever 
determined  to  set  Rome  and  Venice  free.  Though  de- 
feated by  the  Italians  at  Aspromonte  and  by  the  French 
at  Mentana,  he  finally  saw  his  dream  of  United  Italy 
fully  realized.  For,  in  1866,  by  an  alliance  with  Prussia, 
Italy  won  Venice,  and,  in  1871,  owing  to  the  prostration 
of  Napoleon  III  by  Bismarck,  was  able  to  make  Eome  her 
capital.  The  work  and  the  prophecy  of  Cavour  were  thus 
fulfilled. 


386  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Not  merely  by  what  was  done  in  his  lifetime,  but  also 
by  what  followed  it,  his  place  in  history  was  made  secure. 
"Well  was  it  said  by  one  of  the  most  broadminded,  skill- 
ful, and  truthful  of  English  diplomatists  in  the  nineteenth 
century — a  statesman  who  had  known  Bismarck  and  Ca- 
vour  most  intimately,  and  who  had  studied  their  careers 
from  every  possible  point  of  view,  near  and  distant — that, 
of  the  two  great  statesmen  of  Europe  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  Cavour  was  the  greater.1 

Not  at  first  sight  so  imposing  a  figure  as  Bismarck 
afterward  became,  not,  apparently,  gifted  with  such 
prodigious  force  to  make  all  men  bend  to  his  will,  not  a 
dictator  to  the  nations  about  him,  crushing  all  opposition, 
Cavour 's  was  a  nobler  will  and  power,  the  will  and  power 
to  lay  the  foundations  of  Italian  unity  in  Italian  liberty ; 
to  work  by  means  of  reason  rather  than  by  force ;  to  pre- 
serve faith  in  freedom  and  justice;  to  fit  the  nation  for 
freedom  by  education ;  to  inspire  Italians  to  win  liberty 
by  sound  thinking,  and  to  preserve  it  by  political  sobriety. 
All  this  combined  to  give  him  the  foremost  place  not  only 
among  Italian  statesmen,  but  among  the  statesmen  of 

i  The  English  diplomatist  referred  to  was  Lord  Odo  Russell,  afterward 
Lord  Ampthill.  He  had  long  diplomatic  service  in  America,  in  many 
parts  of  Europe,  and,  especially,  in  Italy  and  Germany.  Both  Cavour 
and  Bismarck  he  knew  intimately,  and  was  beloved  and  trusted  by  both ; 
but,  on  being  asked  at  Berlin  by  the  present  writer  which  of  the  two 
men  he  considered  the  greater  in  his  character  and  work,  he  made  the 
statement  above  referred  to. 

For  a  masterly  development  of  the  reasoning  which  proves  Cavour 
greater  in  true  statesmanship  than  Bismarck,  see  W.  R.  Thayer,  Cavour 
e  Bismarck,  Rome,  1906. 

I  may  add  to  Mr.  Thayer's  exhibition  of  Bismarck's  scorn  for  popular 
rights  and  hatred  for  parliamentary  government  that,  having  heard  the 
great  German  statesman  address  the  German  Parliament  on  various  occa- 
sions, I  cannot  remember  one  of  his  speeches  which  did  not,  on  the  whole, 
betray  contempt  for  his  audience  and  dislike,  if  not  hatred,  for  its  most 
distinguished  thinkers.  How  far  all  this  differed  from  Cavour's  feeling 
may  be  seen  by  -any  one  who  will  take  up  his  parliamentary  speeches,  as- 
given  in  Artom  and  Blanc  and  elsewhere. 


CAVOUR  387 

the  European  Continent  during  the  nineteenth  century. 

Two  great  peculiarities  of  his  statesmanship  may  here 
be  mentioned.  First:  in  his  dealings  with  the  Church 
Cavour  enforced  a  distinction  between  the  religious  and 
the  political — thus  he  withstood  and  thwarted  the  Vati- 
can, which  sought  to  prove  to  Italy  that  the  political,  by 
which  the  Roman  Curia  had  worldly  power,  wealth,  dis- 
tinction, was  the  religious. 

Secondly:  from  1850  on,  Cavour 's  policy  steadily 
tended  to  bring  as  many  Italians  as  possible  together. 
Mazzini,  for  example,  cried  ' '  Unity !  Unity ! ' '  and  then  ex- 
cluded everybody  who  was  not  in  his  particular  faction : 
in  1859  and  1860  Cavour  had  Mazzinians,  Giobertians, 
Guerrazzians,  and  virtually  all  the  other  factions  of  lib- 
eral intent,  working  together  (though  they  hardly  realized 
it  themselves)  for  the  great  cause  which  he  was  directing. 
Well  does  our  foremost  American  authority  on  the  events 
of  Cavour 's  time  say:  "In  his  ability  to  get  as  many 
as  possible,  even  against  their  will,  to  fight  under  his. 
banner,  he  has  had  no  equal  save  Abraham  Lincoln."  x 

Since  Cavour 's  death  Italy  has  taken  him  to  her  heart 
as  during  his  lifetime  she  never  did.  His  services  were 
of  a  sort  which,  while  he  lived,  won  respect  rather  than 
popularity.  He  was  obliged  to  injure  many  interests 
and  to  offend  many  men.  He  never  sought  popular 
plaudits,  and,  at  times,  was  exceedingly  unpopular ;  more 
than  once  his  speeches  in  Parliament  were  drowned  by 
hisses  from  the  galleries.  Beloved  he  indeed  was, — 
deeply  beloved  by  a  wide  circle  of  friends;  admired  he 
was  by  a  large  and  ever  increasing  circle  of  political 
thinkers;  but  other  men,  during  his  lifetime,  won  far 
more  of  unthinking  applause.  Just  at  the  end  of  his  life 
there  did,  indeed,  come  a  rapid  change.  All  men  of 
patriotic  instincts  recognized  more  and  more  his  su- 
preme service.    More  and  more  it  was  seen  that  what 

i  W.  R.  Thayer,  as  above. 


388  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

other  statesmen,  generals,  philosophers,  poets,  could  not 
do,  he  had  done.  More  and  more  the  nation  came  to 
understand  him  and,  therefore,  to  love  and  revere  him. 

This  newer  growth  of  feeling  has  continued  since  his 
death,  ever  deepening  in  the  convictions  of  the  newer 
generations.  Throughout  all  the  greater  districts  which 
he  brought  into  United  Italy,  now  stand  noble  monu- 
ments to  his  memory ;  but,  among  all  these,  the  most  im- 
pressive is  the  simplest. 

Several  years  before  his  death,  in  the  thick  of  his 
labors  and  struggles  for  his  country,  he  had  visited  the 
Campo  Santo  at  Pisa;  and  there,  standing  upon  sacred 
earth  brought  from  Palestine,  amid  the  frescoes  of 
Orcagna  and  the  memorials  of  great  Italians,  he  had 
mused  over  the  future  of  Italy,  and  his  relation  to  it.  He 
was  not  destined  to  be  buried  there;  his  body  lies  in  the 
little  church  at  Santena,  near  the  homestead  he  loved  so 
well.  But,  in  the  Pisan  Campo  Santo,  among  far  more 
pretentious  monuments,  has  been  placed  his  simple  bust 
in  marble;  and  upon  the  ancient  walls  behind  it  have 
been  festooned  the  colossal  chains  with  which  Pisa  once 
prevented  the  access  of  Florence  and  Genoa  by  the  Arno. 
Having  been  torn  away  after  fearful  struggles  and  dis- 
played for  centuries  as  trophies  at  Genoa  and  Florence, 
they  have  in  these  latter  days  been  returned  to  Pisa, 
and  a  simple  inscription  records  the  fact  that  they  are 
restored  to  United  Italy,  in  token  that  the  ages  of  dis- 
union are  past.  No  better  place  could  have  been  found 
for  them,  and  no  more  worthy  tribute  could  have  been 
paid  to  the  man  whose  great  genius  ended  more  than  a 
thousand  years  of  internecine  struggles  among  his  coun- 
trymen, and  who,  more  than  any  other,  finally  established 
Italian  independence,  unity,  and  freedom. 


BISMAKCK 


BISMAECK 


COULD  there  have  come  in  Germany  an  evolution  of 
right  reason  from  the  work  of  Stein,  what  long 
years  of  heart-breaking  disappointment,  of  precious 
lives  wasted  in  dungeons,  in  exile,  on  scaffolds  and  on 
battlefields,  had  been  avoided!  But  revolutionary  ex- 
cesses had  inevitably  provoked  reactionary  retaliations 
equally  severe:  the  feverish  cruelty  of  Danton,  Marat, 
and  Robespierre  was,  under  a  law  of  nature,  followed 
by  the  chilling  cruelty  of  Bourbons,  Hapsburgs,  and 
Romanoffs ;  conspirators  on  one  side  provoked  tyrants  on 
the  other  and  thus  came  a  rule  of  unreason,  with  succes- 
sive reactions  and  revolutions,  which  lasted  more  than 
fifty  years. 

As  long  as  the  German  monarchs  were  summoning  aid 
for  their  final  effort  against  Napoleon,  their  promises  to 
their  subjects  were  dazzling,  and  especially  so  were  their 
pledges  of  constitutional  liberty  and  national  unity. 
But,  Leipzig  and  Waterloo  having  been  fought,  and 
Napoleon  no  longer  feared,  there  was  ominous  delay: 
even  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  which  was  expected  to 
bring  in  a  golden  age  of  peace  and  good-will,  there  came, 
especially  between  the  two  greater  German  powers,  a 
scramble  for  territory  which,  for  a  time,  seemed  likely 
to  end  in  fraternal  bloodshed. 

Austria,  with  Metternich  at  her  head,  fell  back  upon 
her  old  despotic  methods.  The  Austrian  emperor,  ha- 
ranguing the  German  professors  at  Laybach,  gave  them 
another  version  of  his  famous  address  to  the  Italian 

391 


392  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

professors  at  Padua.  His  words  were:  "I  do  not  need 
savants,  but  sturdy  subjects.  It  is  your  duty  to  educate 
the  young  to  be  such.  He  who  serves  me  must  learn 
what  I  order :  he  who  cannot  or  who  brings  me  new  ideas 
can  go,  or  I  will  dismiss  him. ' '  In  accordance  with  this 
spirit  in  Austria  and  various  other  parts  of  South  Ger- 
many, not  only  private  tuition  but  public  instruction  was 
kept  in  the  hands  of  the  priesthood ;  history  and  literature 
were  subjected  to  strict  censorship;  under  suspicion  of 
liberalism  imprisonments  were  meted  out  to  the  noblest 
of  men — to  scholars  and  thinkers  who,  believing  in  the 
promises  of  rulers,  had  risked  their  lives  in  the  wars 
against  Napoleon.  The  Elector  of  Hesse  became  so 
fanatically  reactionary  that  he  alarmed  even  extremists 
on  his  own  side:  as  far  as  possible  he  undid  every  re- 
form, restored  every  abuse,  and  even  reverted  to  the 
uniforms,  wigs,  hair  powder,  and  military  tactics  of  the 
period  before  the  Eevolution.  Prussia  was  in  some 
respects  better,  but  here  too  there  bloomed  forth  the  old 
theory  of  the  "right  divine  of  kings  to  govern  wrong": 
from  the  Prussian  university  of  Bonn  professors  sus- 
pected of  favoring  constitutional  liberty  and  national 
unity  were  expelled  with  as  little  compunction  as  at 
sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  professors  were 
threatened  with  expulsion  and  even  expelled  from  sundry 
American  colleges  and  universities  for  beliefs  regarding 
infant  baptism  or  apostolic  succession  or  free  trade. 

The  leading  German  monarchs  assembled  from  time  to 
time  to  denounce  liberal  ideas  and  to  devise  new  meth- 
ods for  suppressing  them.  Various  political  inquisitions 
were  established,  and  yet,  despite  proscriptions,  confis- 
cations, banishments,  there  remained  a  great  body  of 
patriots  throughout  the  whole  German  territory,  from 
the  Alps  to  the  North  Sea  and  from  the  Rhine  provinces 
to  Russia,  who  held  high  an  ideal  of  well-regulated  free- 


BISMARCK  393 

dorn.    Most  evident  was  this  at  the  great  city  centres 
and,  above  all,  at  the  universities. 

In  the  cities  rose  vigorous  writers  who,  in  spite  of 
paid  adversaries,  strengthened  this  feeling.  At  the  uni- 
versities there  continued  to  appear,  despite  the  apparent 
certainty  of  banishment  or  imprisonment,  professors 
who  inculcated  ideas  of  constitutional  right  and  of  a 
united  German  nation.  Then  came  into  being  the  Bur- 
schenschaft — a  widespread  student  organization  with 
speeches  and  songs  glorifying  liberty  and  unity.  Nota- 
ble was  the  great  student  assembly  on  October  18,  1817, 
at  the  Wartburg.  There,  in  the  heart  of  Thuringia,  in 
the  old  castle  of  the  Minnesingers  and  of  Luther,  student 
enthusiasm  seemed  to  carry  all  before  it; — but  inevita- 
bly with  many  noble  utterances  there  were  extrav- 
agances. As  usual  in  such  movements  its  worst  enemies 
were  of  its  own  household:  fanatics  arose,  and  one  of 
these,  the  student  Sand,  assassinated  the  reactionary 
writer  Kotzebue.  No  better  pretext  could  have  been 
offered  to  reaction.  Sane  and  sober  people  were  alarmed. 
To  their  fear  of  anarchy  monarchs  appealed  anew  and 
there  came  measures  of  repression  more  and  more  cruel, 
— among  these  the  imprisonment  and  impoverishment  of 
Arndt,  whose  songs  had  aroused  Germany  for  the  Free- 
dom War,  and  of  Jahn,  who  had  sacrificed  all  to  the 
redemption  of  the  country. 

In  sundry  minor  states  rulers  did,  indeed,  grant  con- 
stitutions or  charters  more  or  less  valuable;  the  Duke 
of  Weimar,  the  friend  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  winning  the 
honor  of  being  the  first  to  make  an  honest  attempt  to 
keep  the  promises  made  by  German  sovereigns  in  trouble. 

As  to  Germany  at  large,  the  thirty-nine  separate  sover- 
eignties remaining  after  Napoleon  had  dealt  with  the  old 
Empire  had  formed  a  confederation.  Its  national  con- 
gress, which  met  at  Frankfort-on-Main,  was  made  up  of 


394  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

representatives  not  selected  by  the  peoples  of  various 
states,  but  by  their  rulers,  and  its  functions  were  there- 
fore not  legislative  but  diplomatic — the  representatives 
sitting  around  its  green  table  simply  as  envoys  of  their 
respective  sovereigns  and  its  sessions  being  secret.  It 
became  at  its  beginning  and  remained  until  its  end  a  nest 
of  intrigues: — Austria  against  Prussia,  Prussia  against 
Austria,  the  minor  states  taking  sides  as  each  thought 
most  profitable,  but  Austria  generally  securing  a  major- 
ity. This  Federation  Diet  was  foredoomed  to  impotence 
as  regarded  any  good  purpose ;  its  whole  influence  made 
for  despotism  and  disunion. 

Now  came  the  French  Revolution  of  1830  which  de- 
throned the  Bourbons,  and  this  with  various  other  ef- 
forts, more  or  less  successful,  at  throwing  off  tyranny 
in  Italy  and  elsewhere,  and  the  passage  of  the  Reform 
Bill  in  Great  Britain,  aroused  new  hopes  everywhere. 
But  now  came  attempts  of  hot-headed  men  to  arouse 
revolution ; — as  at  the  castle  of  Hambach  in  1832,  and  at 
Frankfort-on-Main  in  the  year  following.  Thence  inev- 
itably resulted  reactionary  measures  equally  absurd, 
among  them  the  abrogation  of  the  constitution  of  Han- 
over by  King  Ernest  August  and  the  expulsion  of  the 
"Gottingen  seven" — seven  of  the  most  eminent  men 
in  Germany  driven  from  their  professor's  chairs  for  be- 
lieving in  constitutional  methods.  Everywhere  was  the 
see-saw  from  revolution  to  reaction  and  from  reaction  to 
revolution,  nowhere,  apparently,  evolution  in  obedience 
to  sober  judgment  and  right  reason.  The  result  among 
thinking  men  was  mainly  discouragement  and  apathy: 
the  philosophy  of  Kant,  the  supreme  call  of  duty,  which 
had  inspired  the  mighty  thoughts  and  deeds  of  the  Free- 
dom War,  was  succeeded  widely  by  the  philosophy  of 
Hegel — in  its  popular  interpretation,  "Whatever  is,  is 
right." 

The  whole  economic  framework  of  German   institu- 


BISMARCK  395 

tions  was  as  preposterous  as  its  political  condition.  It 
was  the  same  condition  which  Turgot  had  endeavored 
to  reform  in  France,  but  which  had  only  been  destroyed 
by  the  great  Revolution  of  1789.  In  1815  Germany  was 
divided  between  thirty-six  commercial  districts,  each  with 
its  own  custom-houses  and  tariff  schedules.  And  yet  it 
was  out  of  all  this  unreason  that  there  came  beginnings 
of  fruitful  thought  for  German  liberty  and  union:  for 
gradually  there  was  developed  a  Customs  Union,  a 
Zollverein,  Prussia  taking  the  lead  and  other  states  join- 
ing her.  This  proved  more  and  more  strikingly  successful 
and  it  suggested  quietly  to  every  thinking  mind  two  great 
questions : — if  rational  freedom  is  good  in  commerce  why 
not  in  politics,  and  if  commercial  union  is  possible  why 
not  political  union. 

Meantime  constitutional  assemblies,  generally  poor 
and  petty,  and  for  advisory  purposes  merely,  had  been 
created  in  various  German  states  and  these  kept  alive 
some  germs  of  rational  liberty.  Even  an  assembly  of 
this  wretched  sort  was  prevented  in  Prussia  for  more 
than  thirty  years  after  representative  government  had 
been  promised.  But  in  1840  there  came  to  the  throne  of 
Prussia  Frederick  William  IV.  Though  given  to  medi- 
aeval dreams  and  theories  he  was  a  man  of  many  gifts 
and  much  was  expected  of  him.  His  first  doings  were 
greeted  with  joy.  He  set  free  patriots  who  had  been 
imprisoned,  he  returned  to  their  university  chairs  pro- 
fessors who  had  been  ejected — among  them  Arndt, — 
and  in  1847  he  allowed  the  eight  local  diets  in  the  various 
provinces  of  the  kingdom- — feeble  bodies  under  complete 
royal  and  police  control — to  be  represented  in  what  was 
called  a  United  Prussian  Diet  at  Berlin,  the  first  parlia- 
ment which  represented  the  whole  of  Prussia.1 

But  this  body  was  carefully  tethered  and  fettered.    Its 

i  On  the  significance  of  this   body,  see  Bryce,   Holy  Roman  Empire,  p. 
463.     As  to  its  composition,  see  Matter,  Vie  de  Bismarck,  chap.  i. 


396  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

functions  were  not  legislative,  but  advisory,  and  in  open- 
ing it  the  King  gave  forth  a  most  disheartening  gospel : 
"No  power  on  earth,"  he  said,  "shall  ever  succeed  in 
persuading  me  to  exchange  the  natural  relation  between 
king  and  people  for  a  conventional,  constitutional  one; 
neither  now  nor  ever  will  I  permit  a  written  sheet,  like 
a  second  providence,  to  thrust  itself  in  between  our  God 
in  Heaven  and  this  land,  to  displace  the  old  sacred 
fidelity." 

By  various  other  rulers,  occasional  concessions  were 
made  to  the  longing  for  sane  liberty,  some  effective,  some 
farcical;  but  the  evident  purpose  of  every  crowned  head 
in  making  these  concessions  was  to  glorify  the  sovereign 
and  depress  the  subject. 

Adding  enormously  to  the  general  difficulty  was  the 
aristocracy:  it  held  to  its  mediaeval  position  and  priv- 
ilege as  if  Stein  had  never  abolished  serfdom  nor  given 
city  liberties.  As  a  result  the  ferment  increased.  Out- 
breaks by  mobs  continued,  alarming  the  moderate,  steady- 
going  population,  and  thus  giving  to  absolutist  rulers 
the  pretexts  they  needed. 

In  February,  1848,  came  a  new  French  Revolution 
which  dethroned  the  house  of  Orleans.  Never  was  an 
outbreak  more  causeless  or  useless ;  never  was  one  which 
revealed  more  folly  on  both  sides;  never  one  more  sure 
to  result  in  a  reaction  paralyzing  both  liberty  and  na- 
tional self-respect.  Yet,  futile  as  it  was,  it  set  all  Europe 
in  flames :  Metternich  fled  from  his  Vienna  post  forever ; 
the  old  Emperor  Ferdinand  was  driven  out  of  Vienna, 
and  a  new  Emperor,  young  Francis  Joseph,  was  en- 
throned; at  Berlin,  King  Frederick  William  IV  was 
humiliated  by  a  mob  which  forced  him  to  swallow  his 
mediaeval  theories,  to  dismiss  his  guards,  to  grant  a  con- 
stitution, and  to  call  a  Prussian  national  assembly  which 
was  to  be  a  very  different  thing  from  that  poor  evasion, 
the  United  Prussian  Diet.     The  King  of  Bavaria  was 


BISMARCK  397 


forced  to  abdicate  in  favor  of  his  son,  and  German  rulers 
generally  were  obliged  to  submit  to  indignities  and  to 
grant  constitutions.  On  the  highways  of  the  Continent 
princes  and  their  ministers  were  flying  for  their  lives 
toward  England,  and  among  these  Prince  William  of 
Prussia,  afterward  the  first  Emperor  of  the  new  Ger- 
many. On  all  sides  war  was  threatening; — in  Austria, 
in  Hungary,  in  Italy.  In  Denmark  war  with  Prussia  was 
begun. 

Yet  another  effort  was  now  made  for  a  united  Ger- 
many. To  take  the  place  of  the  wretched  old  Federal 
Diet  at  Frankfort-on-Main,  representing  the  princes,  a 
National  Parliament  was  now  elected,  representing  the 
entire  German  people,  and  in  May  it  met  in  that  city. 
Rarely  has  any  public  body  contained  so  many  men  of 
profound  thought  and  high  ideals ;  rarely  has  any  public 
body  contained  so  few  members  of  practical  experience ; 
never  was  there  a  more  discouraging  failure. 

The  assembly  had  begun  well.  Its  president,  Yon 
Gagern,  seemed  a  most  happy  choice ;  but  soon  came  dis- 
appointment. With  wars  threatening  on  all  sides ;  with 
the  mob  spirit  seething  in  every  city;  with  desperate 
efforts,  open  or  secret,  by  the  old  governments  to  regain 
their  power ;  with  attempts  throughout  the  nation,  some- 
times contemptible,  sometimes  ferocious,  to  abolish  abso- 
lutism; and  with  the  whole  German  people,  indeed  the 
whole  world,  longing  for  practical  measures,  the  assem- 
bly became  simply  a  debating  club.  Professors  and 
jurists  discussed,  day  after  day  and  week  after  week, 
their  theories  of  the  state,  of  the  origin  of  sovereignty, 
of  the  nature  of  popular  rights, — everything  save  prac- 
tical measures  necessary  to  secure  national  liberty  and 
unity.  Soon  sophists,  satirists,  and  caricaturists  were 
at  work,  many  of  them  doubtless  well  paid  by  the  sup- 
porters of  absolutism.  Popular  confidence  waned.  But 
at  last   the   Diet   seemed   to   make   efforts   of   a   more 


398  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

practical  sort :  after  a  world  of  metaphysics  and  rhetoric, 
a  popular  Austrian  Archduke  was  made  Administrator  of 
Germany,  and,  after  nearly  a  year  more,  came  the  climax: 
on  March  28,  1849,  the  Assembly  chose  King  Frederick 
William  of  Prussia  to  be  German  Emperor,  and  a  dele- 
gation of  the  foremost  men  of  the  Parliament  went  to 
Berlin  and  solemnly  offered  him  the  crown.  The  gift 
was  utterly  refused,  and  soon  the  world  was  informed 
that  the  King  could  not  take  it  from  the  people,  that  it 
must  come  from  their  rulers. 

To  the  national  parliament  this  was  a  killing  blow. 
Anarchy  became  worse  everywhere.  A  rebellion  broke 
out  in  Baden ;  a  revolt  was  sprung  in  Saxony ;  Hungary 
was  in  the  throes  of  a  mighty  revolution,  threatening  the 
very  existence  of  the  Austrian  Empire;  assassinations 
of  generals,  of  rulers,  of  publicists,  were  reported,  and 
not  only  in  Germany,  but  in  France  and  Italy.  The 
Administrator  of  the  Empire,  Archduke  John,  gave  up 
his  office  in  disgust,  and  more  than  a  hundred  delegates  to 
Frankfort  resigned  their  seats, — among  them  the  presi- 
dent and  a  large  number  of  the  most  trusted  leaders ;  a 
week  later  about  a  hundred  members  transferred  them- 
selves from  Frankfort  to  Stuttgart  and  there  fell  again 
to  debating,  outbidding  each  other  in  proposals  wild  and 
futile.  Less  than  a  fortnight  of  this  sufficed  to  disgust 
all  Germany,  and,  on  the  twelfth  day  of  their  session,  a 
Wiirtemberg  minister,  formerly  one  of  its  members, 
closed  the  riding  school  where  it  met,  and,  by  the  aid  of 
soldiery,  dispersed  it.  Thus  ended  forever,  after  a  little 
more  than  a  year  of  service,  the  great  National  Parlia- 
ment of  Frankfort. 

Other  events  depressed  German  patriots  yet  more.  In 
Berlin  a  constitutional  convention  apparently  went  mad 
and  was  turned  out  of  doors  by  Marshal  Wrangel.  From 
Italy  came  news  that  the  efforts  in  Naples  against  the 
Bourbons  had  failed;  that  the  movement  for  constitu- 


BISMARCK  399 

tional  liberty  in  the  Eoman  States  had  resulted  in  the 
triumph  of  a  ferocious  mob,  and  in  the  assassination  of 
Rossi, — the  only  statesman  from  whom  Italian  liberty 
and  unity  could  at  that  time  expect  anything;  that  in 
upper  Italy  the  heroic  effort  of  Piedmont  to  establish 
national  liberty  and  unity  had  been  crushed  by  Austria 
at  the  battle  of  Novara.  From  France  came  news  that 
the  republican  constitution  had  been  discredited  by  the 
squabbles  of  orators  and  factions  and  that  Louis  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte  had  been  elected  president  of  the  new 
French  Republic:  what  that  meant  every  lover  of  liberty 
knew  instinctively.  Then,  too,  after  a  long  series  of 
Absolutist  triumphs  in  various  parts  of  Germany,  word 
came  that  the  Russian  Emperor,  Nicholas  I,  the  high 
priest  of  absolutism,  had  marched  his  troops  to  save  the 
Hapsburg  dynasty,  had  overcome  the  Hungarian  army, 
which  up  to  this  time  had  carried  all  before  it,  and  that 
a  foretaste  was  given  of  the  ultimate  treatment  of  lib- 
erals throughout  Europe — extensive  confiscations,  with, 
banishments  and  executions  of  liberal  leaders.  Every- 
where absolutism  seemed  triumphant.  During  this  long, 
dreary  period  many  of  the  noblest  Germans  yielded  to 
discouragement  and  departed  for  other  countries, — espe- 
cially for  America;  and,  among  these,  Francis  Lieber, 
Carl  Follen,  and  Carl  Schurz, — all  of  them  destined  to 
render  high  service  to  the  United  States.  In  Germany 
there  seemed  no  hope.  In  every  part  of  the  country  men 
of  the  purest  character  were  in  prison  or  in  hiding ;  the 
old  tyranny  loomed  up  more  threatening  than  ever;  and 
it  was  at  this  time,  at  the  very  worst,  when  constitutional 
liberty  and  national  unity  seemed  at  the  last  gasp,  that 
there  appeared, — apparently  to  make  a  complete  end  of 
them,— a  young  apostle  of  reaction,  absolutism,  and  dis- 
union, Otto  von  Bismarck-Schonhausen. 

His  qualities  came  from  far.     The  family  name  and 
history  show  that  his  ancestors  were  frontiersmen, — liv- 


400  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 


ing  in  the  lower  Elbe  region  of  Germany,  perhaps  on  the 
"mark,"  or  border,  of  the  bishops  trying  to  maintain 
their  footing  there,  or,  as  sundry  antiquarians  insist,  on 
the  local  border  marked  by  the  little  river  Biese : — hence 
the  name,  Bischoff's  mark,  or  perhaps  Biesemark,  which 
became  in  popular  speech  Bismarck.1 

The  first  of  these  ancestors  on  whom  historic  light 
appears  is  one  Herebord  or  Herbert  von  Bismarck,  who 
about  1270  was  Master  of  the  Clothiers'  Guild  at  the 
market  town  of  Stendal.  More  clearly  is  seen,  half  a 
century  later,  his  grandson  Euloff ,  or  ' '  Rule, ' ' — a  man  of 
substance  and  strength,  who  put  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  Stendal  citizens,  fought  the  neighboring  bishop  on 
questions  regarding  public  schools,  and  was  excommu- 
nicated. 

Far  more  vividly  is  revealed  to  us  Euloff 's  son,  Nich- 
olas, better  known  as  ' '  Claus ' '  von  Bismarck,  who,  having 
become  rich  and  powerful,  made  peace  with  the  Church, 
led  the  Stendal  aristocracy  in  fighting  the  city  democracy, 
and,  though  driven  from  the  city,  secured  finally  a  strong 
feudal  castle  and  rich  estates  hard  by.  He  was  the  pre- 
cursor of  his  great  descendant,  not  only  in  war  but  in 
statesmanship.  During  the  middle  years  of  the  four- 
teenth century  his  fame  spread  far;  he  allied  himself 
with  the  lords  of  the  land — the  Margrave  of  Brandenburg 
and  the  Bishop  of  Magdeburg;  gained  rank  among  their 
leading  councilors;  showed  skill  in  large  finance;  took 
part  in  war  against  the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  against  the 
German  Emperor,  and  finally  against  the  Church,  and, 
like  his  father,  achieved  excommunication.  In  the  fol- 
lowing centuries,  members  of  the  family  are  frequently 
heard  of,  fighting  or  negotiating.  In  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, at  least  one  of  them  fought  against  the  Turks;  in 

i  For  this  question  between  Biese-Mark  and  Bischoff's  Mark  threshed 
out  at  great  length,  see  Dr.  J.  Langer,  in  the  Horst  Kohl  Bismarck  Jahr- 
luch,  iv,  pp.  289-298. 


BISMARCK  401 

the  seventeenth,  several  of  them  took  part  in  the  Thirty 
Years'  War;  early  in  the  eighteenth,  one  of  them,  after 
exile  in  Siberia  and  diplomatic  service  in  England,  laid 
down  his  life  fighting  against  the  Swedes  under  Peter 
the  Great  at  Poltava.  Later  in  the  same  century,  a  great 
grandfather  of  the  future  Prince  Chancellor  fell  fighting 
under  Frederick  the  Great  against  the  Austrians  at 
Czaslau;  a  grandfather  took  part  in  the  famous  victory 
of  Frederick  over  the  French  at  Rossbach ;  and  the  father 
was  wounded  in  battle  under  the  Duke  of  Brunswick 
against  the  French  Revolution.  In  the  nineteenth,  two 
were  in  Schill's  Free  Corps,  which  persisted  in  fighting 
Napoleon,  even  after  the  Peace  of  Tilsit;  and  seven  of 
them  fought  in  the  Freedom  War  of  1813,  of  whom  three 
were  killed  and  four  won  and  wore  the  Iron  Cross  for 
valor.  Bismarck  in  his  old  age  summed  it  all  up  by  say- 
ing: "  During  the  last  three  hundred  years,  I  have  no 
ancestor  who  has  not  fought  against  France."  1 

In  its  various  abiding  places  on  the  lower  waters  of 
the  Elbe,  certain  characteristics  made  the  family  widely 
known ;  it  was  largely  represented  by  rough  riders,  fierce 
hunters,  hard  hitters,  sturdy  trenchermen,  heavy 
drinkers. 

The  father  of  the  future  Chancellor,  though  for  a  time 
a  soldier,  seemed  of  a  milder  type,  and  settled  down  at 
Schonhausen  as  a  worthy  country  squire.  The  mother 
claims  notice  as  the  first  Bismarck  not  of  noble  blood. 
Though  she  came  of  a  line  which  had  produced  eminent 
scholars  and  professors,  and  though  her  father  had  won 
approval  in  the  civil  service  under  Frederick  the  Great, 
the  title  of  Privy  Councilor  under  Frederick  William  II, 
and  the  praises  of  Stein  under  Frederick  William  III, 

i  For   lists    showing  that   collateral   branches   of   the   Bismarck    family 
were  also  exceedingly  fruitful  in  public  servants,  both  military  and  civil, 
see  H.  H.  V.  von  Bismarck,  Stammbuch  des  Geschlechts  Bismarck,  Berlin, 
1900,  throughout. 
26 


402  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

she  could  not  write  the  "von"  before  her  name  until 
after  her  marriage.  So  far  as  Berlin  knew  her,  she  was 
brilliant — read  much,  talked  well,  loved  city  society  and 
travel — and  spent  too  much  money.  Her  children  knew 
her  but  little,  for  she  had  learned,  probably  from  Eous- 
seau,  to  keep  them  much  away  from  home  and  to  have 
them  treated  as  young  Spartans,  but  it  was  doubtless 
through  her  that  there  came  into  the  Bismarck  family  the 
love  of  great  literature,  the  frequent  passion  for  hard 
study,  the  penetrative  thoughtfulness,  which  appeared  in 
her  son,  Otto  Eduard  Leopold. 

Born  on  Saturday,  the  first  day  of  April,  1815,  Otto 
was  the  fourth  of  her  six  children,  of  whom  there  sur- 
vived, beside  himself,  an  elder  brother  heard  of  after- 
ward honorably  but  not  widely,  and  a  younger  sister, 
bright  and  devoted,  to  whom  he  was  deeply  attached,  and 
who  received  from  him  many  of  the  letters  which  throw 
so  pleasing  a  light  over  his  family  life  and  his  political 
experiences.  In  his  seventh  year  he  was  sent  to  a  pre- 
paratory school  in  Berlin,  and  remained  there  for  six 
years.  It  was  a  trying  time  for  him:  the  rules  were 
severe,  the  instructors  harsh,  the  diet  thin.  The  school 
claimed  to  train  young  Spartans,  but  its  methods  resem- 
bled those  of  Mr.  Squeers.  Even  at  this  period,  that 
love  for  country  life  and  interest  in  rural  affairs,  which 
became  at  a  later  period  his  passion,  had  taken  strong 
hold  of  the  boy,  and  it  made  confinement  in  a  city  cruelty 
to  him.  At  the  close  of  this  early  school  period,  his 
family  having  taken  an  apartment  in  Berlin,  he  was 
transferred,  first,  to  one  of  the  great  gymnasia  in  that 
city,  and,  later,  to  another,  and  the  instruction  in  these 
seems  to  have  been  of  much  use  to  him:  toward  some  of 
his  more  friendly  teachers  he  cherished  an  affection 
which  ended  only  with  their  lives.  During  all  this  pre- 
paratory period,  though  a  leader  in  sports  among  his  fel- 
lows, he  was  scholarly  and  thoughtful;  his  school  work 


BISMARCK  403 

was  undoubtedly  good,  though  there  were  some  oddities : 
a  tradition  has  come  down  that,  having  a  choice  between 
languages,  he  learned  English,  in  order  to  avoid  the  class 
of  a  French  professor  whom  he  disliked.  Not  only  at 
this  time,  but  always  afterward,  he  showed  great  facility 
in  acquiring  languages:  both  French  and  English  he 
learned  to  speak  with  remarkable  correctness  and  fluency, 
had  during  his  stay  as  Ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg 
obtained  a  serviceable  knowledge  of  Eussian,  and  had 
some  knowledge  of  Dutch,  Polish,  and  Lettish.  His  fa- 
vorite study  was  history — first  that  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
next,  that  of  his  own  country  and  of  England.1 

His  talents  were  recognized  as  excellent  by  his  more 
observant  masters ;  one  of  his  Latin  essays  at  the  gym- 
nasium appears  to  have  been  marked  very  favorably, 
and  apt  references  in  his  speeches  during  after  years 
show  that  this  early  school  training  had  impressed  him: 
to  the  end  of  his  life  he  was  wont  to  make  pithy  Latin 
quotations. 

In  his  sixteenth  year  he  was  confirmed  by  Schleier- 
macher  in  the  little  Trinity  church  at  Berlin  and  one 
interesting  reminder  of  this  event  remains.  The  text 
then  placed  in  his  hands  by  the  great  theologian  was  from 
the  Epistle  to  the  Colossians,  "Whatsoever  ye  do,  do  it 
heartily  as  to  the  Lord  and  not  unto  men."  There  are 
various  evidences  that  this  mandate  impressed  him. 
It  survived  the  roystering,  the  doubts,  the  cynicism, 
which  at  various  times  eclipsed  it,  and  it  is  now  written 
in  golden  letters  above  his  tomb  at  Friedrichsruh. 

Early  in  his  eighteenth  year  he  was  ready  to  enter  the 

i  The  present  writer  once  asked  Bismarck  how  long  he  had  remained 
in  England  to  gain  his  remarkable  facility  in  English.  He  answered: 
"Two  or  three  days,  and  one  of  these  was  Sunday."  This  was  a  humorous 
understatement ;  he  made  two  visits  to  England  during  his  life,  one  in 
1842,  one  twenty  years  later,  but  each  of  them  very  short.  For  a  very 
sprightly  letter  written  from  England  by  him  to  his  father,  dated  July, 
1842,  see  Horst  Kohl,  as  above,  vol.  i,  pp.  4-6. 


404  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

University.  There  had  been  differences  between  his 
parents  regarding  this  step:  the  father,  thinking  that 
family  influence  could  not  fail  to  secure  him  a  Church 
living,  favored  his  adopting  the  clerical  profession;  the 
mother  favored  preparation  for  a  diplomatic  career;  but 
both  feared  university  dissipation — so  that  they  sent 
him  not  to  Heidelberg  but  to  Gottingen.1 

His  first  three  months  at  the  university  were  largely 
given  to  study  and  he  was  especially  attracted  to  the 
lecture  room  of  Heeren,  then  eminent  as  a  historian ;  but 
soon  the  old  wild  Bismarck  spirit  broke  out  irresistibly. 
He  remained  but  three  terms  at  Gottingen,  and  many 
days  during  this  period  were  spent  by  him  in  the  uni- 
versity jail  for  duelling  and  general  insubordination. 
Duelling  seems  to  have  been  a  passion  with  him ;  he  took 
part  in  twenty-eight  student  combats,  one  of  them  with 
pistols,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life  he  carried  on  his  face 
a  scar,  broad  and  deep,  then  gained.  His  university  life 
was,  to  outward  appearance,  mainly  swaggering  and 
roystering,  but  in  reality  he  read  much  and  well;  he  at- 
tended very  few  lectures — his  professors  during  his  whole 
university  life  generally  complaining  that  he  did  not 
come  near  them.  Heeren  seemed  the  only  one  among 
them  who  impressed  him.  His  evil  repute  spread  far :  the 
authorities  of  the  University  of  Jena,  hearing  that  he 
was  about  making  a  visit  to  that  city,  at  once  foreor- 
dained his  expulsion. 

In  his  "Keflections  and  Eeminiscences,,,  dictated  late 
in  life,  he  declares  that  he  became  in  his  school  days  a 
pantheist  and  a  republican;  but  a  moderating  influence 
upon  him  appears  to  have  been  now  exerted  by  a  small 
knot  of  New  England  students,  the  foremost  of  these 
being  John  Lothrop  Motley,  eminent  afterward  as  an 

i  It  was  from  Bismarck  himself  that  the  present  writer  received  the 
statement  regarding  his  father's  preference  as  to  his  choice  of  a  profession 
and  the  reasons  for  it. 


BISMARCK  405 

envoy  of  the  United  States  at  Vienna  and  London,  and 
as  the  historian  of  the  Dutch  Republic. 

After  a  year  and  a  half  of  this  life  at  Gottingen,  his 
heart  and  mind  seemed  to  revolt  against  his  own  folly, 
and,  having  decided  to  apply  himself  more  vigorously  to 
legal  studies,  he  went  to  Berlin,  and  there  rejoined  Mot- 
ley; the  association  between  the  two  men  became  close; 
in  after  life  they  corresponded,  and  whenever  Motley 
appeared  in  Germany  he  at  once  became  Bismarck's 
guest ;  to  the  end  of  his  life  Bismarck  was  very  fond  of 
talking  to  Americans,  and  especially  to  American  envoys 
at  Berlin,  of  his  happy  relations  with  this  friend  of  his 
student  days.1 

In  spite  of  this  friendship  with  a  man  averse  to  royster- 
ing  and  swaggering,  Bismarck  appeared  in  Berlin  under 
an  academic  cloud,  since  by  the  understanding  at  his 
departure  from  Gottingen  one  of  his  first  duties  after 
arriving  at  the  capital  was  to  make  up  part  of  a  sentence 
to  the  university  prison.  He  now  went  on  with  his  legal 
studies,  but  for  a  considerable  time  showed  little  earnest- 
ness in  them.  Though  the  greatest  of  contemporary  law 
professors,  Savigny,  was  then  teaching  there,  Bismarck 
appeared  but  twice  or  thrice  in  his  lecture  room. 

Yet  he  was  by  no  means  intellectually  idle :  during  this 
scholastic  period,  even  during  his  excesses  and  royster- 
ing,   he   continued  vigorously  his   reading  in   Spinoza, 

i  For  reminiscences  of  the  life  of  the  two  friends  together,  dictated  by 
Bismarck  himself,  see  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Memoir  of  Motley,  Boston, 
1898,  pp.  17-19.  For  other  details,  and  for  portions  of  the  correspond- 
ence between  them,  see  G.  W.  Curtis,  Correspondence  of  Motley,  New  York, 
1889.  For  a  much  more  complete  presentation,  see  Drei  Briefe,  1855- 
1S58,  in  Horst  Kohl,  Bismarck  Jahrouch,  Band  iii,  pp.  97  and  following; 
and  Sechs  Briefe,  1864-187%,  Hid.,  iv,  p.  209  and  following.  For  a 
curious  evidence  of  Bismarck's  pride  in  his  acquaintance  with  Motley, 
see  The  Correspondence  of  William  I  and  Bismarck,  Eng.  translation, 
London,  1903,  vol.  i,  p.  136.  Some  additional  matters  connected  with 
their  relations,  learned  from  Bismarck,  are  given  in  the  Autobiography 
of  the  present  writer. 


406  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Hegel,  Goethe,  Shakespeare,  and  other  great  thinkers,—" 
giving  himself  much  to  history,  and  continuing  to  show, 
as  Stein  had  done,  especial  liking  for  the  history  of  Eng- 
land. More  than  two  years  had  thus  been  spent,  appar- 
ently aimlessly,  when  he  began  to  show  that  power  in 
work  which  became  later  the  wonder  of  Europe.  For 
in  spite  of  his  neglect  of  lectures  he  grappled  heroically 
with  his  law  books,  and  by  working,  night  and  day, 
pushed  his  way  through  all  barriers,  became  Auscultator, 
or  legal  attache  of  a  court,  and  in  this  capacity  tried 
sundry  cases  with  an  originality,  not  to  say  impudence 
toward  witnesses  and  judges,  which  nearly  ended  his 
legal  life  then  and  there. 

Then  came  another  of  the  many  sudden  changes  in  his 
career.  He  announced  a  preference  for  administrative 
work  rather  than  legal,  rapidly  prepared  himself,  aston- 
ished the  local  jurists  by  the  brilliancy  of  his  examination, 
and  became  a  Refer  endar,  or  official  law  reporter,  at  Aix- 
la-Chapelle.  In  this  new  career  he  again  learned  to  de- 
spise the  bureaucracy  about  him;  but  he  continued  to 
read  much,  cultivated  largely  the  society  of  foreign  vis- 
itors, appeared  at  the  Royal  Palace  at  Berlin  and  was 
presented  to  Prince  William  of  Prussia — afterward  the 
Emperor  William  of  Germany.  But  here  there  was  a 
new  outbreak  of  dissipation  which  later  in  life  he  bitterly 
regretted,  and  which  began  a  period  of  unrest  lasting 
nearly  ten  years.  The  young  man  seemed  "everything 
by  turns  and  nothing  long."  He  became  a  petty  bureau- 
crat at  Potsdam,  began  his  military  service  in  the  Royal 
Guard  and  flew  among  the  highest;  but  suddenly  there 
came  a  shock, — news  that  the  family  fortunes  were 
wrecked,  that  the  passion  of  the  mother  for  high  life  had 
led  to  neglect  of  the  estates  and  to  wretched  firiancial 
entanglements.1 

i  For  Bismarck's  theses,  on  taking  his  examination  as  Referenda!-,  given 


BISMARCK  407 

The  better  Bismarck  now  asserts  himself.  He  real- 
izes the  situation  at  once,  acts  promptly,  breaks  away 
from  Potsdam  and  all  its  court  attractions  and  extrav- 
agances, goes  to  the  little  university  of  Greifswald,  re- 
sumes his  military  service  in  a  comparatively  humble 
company  there,  and  devotes  himself  to  study  at  the  neigh- 
boring agricultural  college  of  Eldena,  and  to  practice  at 
his  little  estate  in  Pomerania. 

The  death  of  his  father  in  1845  increased  his  responsi- 
bilities and  we  now  hear  of  him  as  a  country  squire  at 
the  most  important  of  the  three  family  estates, — Schon- 
hausen.  His  passion  for  rural  life  deepened ;  in  his  great 
days  afterward  his  wife  told  visiting  statesmen,  "He 
cares  more  for  a  turnip  than  for  all  your  politics." 

In  redeeming  the  estates  he  applied  the  scientific  theo- 
ries he  had  learned  at  Eldena,  but  with  that  practical 
common  sense  which  was  always  his  main  trait.  He 
learned  much  from  the  men  about  him.  To  the  end  of 
his  life  he  loved  the  rude  ways  and  shrewd  talk  of  the 
peasantry.  He  knew  them  through  and  through,  became 
one  of  them,  and  this  mingling  of  science  and  practical 
observation  brought  success  and  won  respect.  Erelong 
he  was  made  Captain  of  the  Dikes  upon  the  Elbe.  This 
suited  his  character  well,  for  it  demanded  prompt  deci- 
sion in  emergencies,  sudden  grapples  with  danger,  force- 
ful assertions  of  authority,  and  persistent  fighting  with 
trespassers  and  marauders  along  the  coasts  and  in  the 
courts. 

Like  so  many  of  his  ancestors  he  at  times  broke  over 
conventionalities  and  proprieties.  As  the  hero  of  vari- 
ous reckless  adventures  he  became  widely  known  as 
"crazy"  Bismarck — Der  tolle  Bismarck.  There  were 
wild  night  rides,  with  falls  and  rib-breaking  which  cost 
him  weeks   in   the  hospital, — carousals  worthy   of  the 

in  full,  see  Horst  Kohl,  Bismarck  Jahrbuch,  Band  ii,  pp.  3-47.     They  show 
■wide  reading,  close  reasoning,  and  much  Prussian  patriotism. 


408  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Thirty  Years'  "War, — visits  to  boon  companions  whom  he 
awakened  by  pistol  shots  through  their  windows,  and  to 
ladies  whom  he  once  sought  to  amuse  by  letting  loose  a 
fox  in  a  ballroom. 

Great  as  was  his  liking  for  rural  life,  he  went  often 
to  Berlin,  and  saw  much  of  society  in  all  its  phases, — 
from  court  to  barrack.  Throughout  his  sayings  and 
doings  at  this  period,  and  especially  through  his  letters, 
there  runs  an  exuberant  vein  of  humor ;  but  he  was  wont 
to  pass  rapidly  from  exhilaration  to  melancholy — these 
moods  being  especially  evidenced  in  his  copious  home 
letters,  above  all  in  those  written,  now  and  later,  to  his 
sister  and  his  future  wife.  Both  from  a  psychological 
and  a  literary  point  of  view  these  letters  are  among 
the  best  ever  written:  witty,  humorous,  shrewd,  exqui- 
sitely appreciative  of  events  and  characters,  constantly 
revealing  acute  thought  and  profound  reflection,  and  all 
perfectly  natural — every  utterance  in  them  direct  from 
his  heart  and  mind :  the  letters  are  the  man  himself. 

He  remained  a  voracious  reader — giving  long  winter 
evenings  to  history,  philosophy,  and  poetry — German, 
French,  and  English;  and  his  memory  seemed  to  retain 
everything — even  the  ponderous  German  Geography,  in 
twenty  volumes,  whence  came  largely  that  minute  ac- 
quaintance with  Central  Europe  which  in  after  years  so 
surprised  his  opponents  in  Parliament  and  in  diplomatic 
conferences.1 

But  this  physical  and  mental  dissipation  was  not  at  the 
cost  of  steady  application  or  of  production.  Then  and 
ever  afterward  he  was  able  to  study, — to  master  thor- 
oughly a  given  subject, — to  write  profoundly  and  pun- 

i  His  passion  for  miscellaneous  reading  seems  to  have  continued  even 
to  his  last  hours.  The  present  writer  saw  at  Friedrichsruh  in  the  autumn 
of  1008,  on  the  table  at  which  Bismarck  had  been  wont  to  work  and 
adjoining  the  room  in  which  he  died,  a  pile  of  miscellaneous  books  which 
he  read  in  his  last  days,  and  among  them  a  brilliant  English  novel  at- 
tacking New  York  City  life. 


BISMARCK  409 

gently, — in  his  early  days  for  the  newspapers  and  at  a 
later  period  in  his  reports  and  despatches. 

He  greatly  loved  travel, — visiting  England,  France, 
and  Switzerland,  and  later  Russia,  Hungary,  Italy,  Spain, 
and  the  Scandinavian  countries.  His  letters  show  that  he 
kept  his  eyes  open ;  he  seems  to  see  everything, — and  not 
merely  things  material.  In  his  letters  chronicling  family 
and  farm  affairs  his  drollery  is  irresistible ;  in  character- 
izing men  and  picturing  scenery  he  is  masterly.  Were 
the  letters  not  so  good  they  would  at  times  seem  whim- 
sical: he  spreads  upon  his  page  the  softening  shades 
on  the  mountains,  the  shimmer  of  the  sea,  the  coloring  of 
the  strata  along  the  road,  the  play  of  the  sunlight  on 
the  herbage,  the  character  of  the  farming  and  its  yield. 
He  shows  himself  capable  of  deep  moral  impressions, 
as  when  he  visits  the  Wartburg,  recalls  the  work  done 
there  by  Luther,  and  ponders  its  deep  meanings ;  or  later, 
when,  sitting  by  the  Rhine  at  Bingen,  he  reflects  upon  his 
earlier  follies.1 

Gradually  there  came  a  new  evolution  in  his  religious 
and  political  theories.  Cynical  and  caustic  as  he  fre- 
quently was,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  was  an 
honest  change.  The  political  change  was  entirely  nat- 
ural :  it  was  the  reaction  which  came  over  so  many  sound, 
strong  minds  as  they  reflected  upon  the  follies,  the  crimes, 
the  cruelties,  the  idiocy,  and  the  nauseous  cant  of  the 

i  For  the  family  correspondence,  see  the  collection  authorized  by  Prince 
Herbert  Bismarck  entitled  Brief e  an  seine  Braut  und  Gattin  (of  this 
ah  English  translation  by  C.  T.  Lewis,  Harper  and  Brothers,  New  York, 
1901)  ;  also  various  friendly  letters  to  those  near  him  given  in  Keudell, 
Bismarck  et  sa  Famille,  translated  by  Lang,  Paris,  1902.  For  special  let- 
ters, personal  and  political,  see  Poschinger's  Bismarck-Portefeuille,  and 
other  works  edited  by  him.  For  the  confidential  letters  from  Frankfort 
to  ministers  at  Berlin,  see  Lettres  Politiques  Confidentielles,  translated  by 
Lang,  Paris,  1885.  For  his  letters  to  his  sovereign,  see  The  Correspond- 
ence of  William  I  and  Bismarck,  with  Other  Letters  from  and  to  Prince 
Bismarck,  English  translation  by  Ford,  London  and  New  York,  2  vols., 
1903. 


410  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Revolution  in  France  and  of  the  various  attempts  at 
mob  rule  in  Germany.  A  religious  change  was  also  nat- 
ural. The  Rousseau  ideas  of  the  eighteenth  century 
which  he  had  heard  in  his  mother's  drawing-room  were 
outworn;  association  with  sundry  thoughtful  friends, 
and,  especially,  conversations  with  a  very  lovely  and 
"brilliant  Christian  woman,  a  neighbor  and  friend,  as  she 
consciously  approached  death,  wrought  a  change  in  his 
views  of  life — a  deep  change.  Now,  too,  he  became  en- 
gaged to  the  daughter  of  a  neighboring  squire, — a  woman 
whose  native  strength  of  character  and  religious  intui- 
tions were  to  exercise  a  very  deep  influence  upon  his 
whole  career.  Thereby  all  his  original  tendencies  to 
reaction  were  strengthened;  the  history  of  Prussia,  in- 
cluding especially  the  work  of  the  Great  Elector  and  of 
Frederick  the  Great,  whom  he  had  always  revered,  took 
on  yet  deeper  meanings  for  him,  and  he  became  known 
among  his  friends  as  a  desperate  reactionary. 

To  end  this  period  came  a  series  of  events  which 
opened  to  him  a  new  career.  As  we  have  seen,  there  had 
been  created  eight  provincial  Diets  in  Prussia,  petty 
assemblies  where  local  affairs  might  be  discussed  by  the 
squirearchy,  not  in  a  legislative,  but  in  an  advisory  way ; 
and  in  1847  Frederick  William  IV,  yielding  to  the  pres- 
sure for  some  sort  of  central  deliberative  assembly,  had 
called  a  United  Diet  at  Berlin,  made  up  of  representa- 
tives from  these  local  assemblies.  To  this  came  Bis- 
marck. Nothing  could  be  more  unpromising  than  this 
entrance  of  his  into  politics.  He  had  not  been  elected 
to  this  legislature,  but,  the  person  chosen  being  ill,  the 
young  squire  went  as  a  substitute ;  nothing  was  expected 
of  him:  he  tells  us  that  at  his  first  election  speech  he 
was  pelted  with  stones,  and  the  only  recorded  parlia- 
mentary speech  of  his  at  that  period  was  a  protest  in  a 
little  provincial  assembly  "against  the  excessive  con- 
sumption of  tallow  in  an  almshouse." 


BISMARCK  411 

Yet  it  should  be  noted  that,  although  widely  considered 
a  mere  noisy  declaimer,  he  had  already  shown  himself 
something  better.  He  had  seen  the  necessity  of  improv- 
ing the  procedure  in  certain  courts  and  had  drawn  up  a 
project  of  reforms  which  showed  patriotic  purpose  and 
constructive  power.  But  nothing  of  this  better  side  of 
his  activity  was  known  beyond  a  very  limited  circle ;  and 
during  the  first  part  of  the  session  he  seemed  to  make  no 
impression.1  Not  until  larger  politics  were  discussed, 
did  he  begin  making  known  his  views  to  better  purpose ; 
then  his  fellow-members,  and,  indeed,  the  world  outside, 
began  listening  to  him.  His  oratory  was  wretched,  but 
his  perseverance  was  invincible.  Never  was  there  a  more 
defiant  reactionary.  He  held  fast  to  the  divine  origin  of 
kingly  right;  on  constitutionalism  he  poured  contempt; 
Prussia,  in  his  view,  had  become  powerful  under  men 
like  the  Great  Elector  and  Frederick  the  Great, — rulers 
with  a  rod  of  iron, — and  it  could  only  remain  powerful 
under  absolutism.  To  those  who  praised  constitutional 
monarchy  in  England,  he  insisted  that  the  circumstances 
of  the  two  nations  were  entirely  different ;  English  ideas 
of  divine  right,  he  said,  had  been  rooted  out  by  revolution 
and  civil  war,  whereas  in  Prussia  the  idea  of  kingship 
by  the  grace  of  God  was  the  mainspring  of  popular  polit- 
ical thought  and  the  centre  of  the  whole  governmental 
system.  In  his  view  neither  parliament  nor  any  court 
of  justice  is  the  source  of  law,  or  its  interpreter,  but 
the  king.  He  opposed  all  concessions  to  the  modern 
spirit ;  he  arrayed  against  the  emancipation  of  the  Jews 
the  idea  of  the  Christian  state,  insisting  that  "princes, 
intrusted  with  God's  scepter,  rule  with  it  on  earth  in 
accordance  with  God's  will,   as   revealed  in  his   Holy 

1  See  Horst  Kohl,  Jahrbuch,  vol.  iii,  p.  36,  and  following.  For  the  six 
points  in  the  reform,  very  practically  stated,  see  p.  37,  with  commentary 
preceding  and  following  them,  in  the  second  of  the  letters  addressed  to 
L.  von  Gerlach. 


412  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Gospel,  and  this  end  could  not  in  any  way  be  promoted 
by  the  help  of  the  Jews."  All  efforts  to  make  the  United 
Prussian  Diet  a  legislative  body,  or  even  to  allow  it  regu- 
lar sessions,  he  fiercely  opposed.  He  declared  German 
unity  a  delusion;  jeered  and  sneered  at  the  flag  which 
represented  it ;  proclaimed  his  love  for  the  flag  and  colors 
of  Prussia — despotic  Austria  he  regarded  with  rever- 
ence and  even  with  affection. 

In  all  this  he  gave  evidence  of  that  force  which  after- 
ward became  so  potent  in  shaping  the  destinies  of  his 
country.  In  the  ordinary  sense  he  could  never  be  called 
an  orator :  he  stammered,  stuttered,  hesitated,  not  unf  re- 
quently  insulted  his  audience,  and  on  one  occasion,  when 
he  had  thus  brought  on  a  tumult,  he  turned  his  back  to 
the  assembly,  drew  a  newspaper  from  his  pocket,  and 
stood  reading  it  until  order  was  restored.  But  he  was 
deeply  in  earnest,  he  forced  his  fellow-members  to  listen 
to  him,  and,  outside  the  Diet,  Berlin,  though  it  derided, 
remembered  him.1 

At  the  end  of  three  months,  it  was  seen  that  this  Prus- 
sian United  Diet  could  accomplish  nothing,  and  it  was 
dismissed.  Now  came  Bismarck's  marriage,  and  it  proved 
happy.  His  letters  to  his  wife  are  among  the  treasures 
of  German  literature ;  her  influence  over  him  was  one  of 
the  fortunate  things  of  his  career ;  to  the  end  of  his  days, 
his  household  life  brought  blessings  to  him,  and  these  he 
at  all  times  attributed  to  his  wife's  influence. 

In  1847,  while  on  his  wedding  journey,  at  Venice,  he 
met  King  Frederick  William  and  talked  fully  and  freely 
with  him.  No  two  men  could  be  personally  more  unlike ; 
but  the  sovereign  was  evidently  won  by  the  young  man 's 
theories  of  carrying  on  the  government  with  a  high  hand. 

i  The  present  writer,  having  heard  Bismarck  speak  at  various  times 
in  important  debates,  has  given  an  account  of  his  manner,  in  his  Auto- 
biography, vol.  i,  pp.  508,  599.  For  the  exhibition  of  contempt  for  his 
parliamentary  audience,  see  Keudell,  as  above,  p.  7. 


BISMARCK  413 

The  revolution  which  broke  out  early  in  the  following 
year  took  a  peculiarly  violent  form  in  Berlin  and  its  first 
outburst  resulted  in  much  bloodshed.  Bismarck  at  once 
showed  himself  its  resourceful  enemy.  In  the  village 
adjoining  his  estate  he  tore  down  the  German  flag  and 
hoisted  the  flag  of  Prussia;  under  his  inspiration  the 
peasants  of  the  region  declared  themselves  ready  to 
march  on  Berlin  with  scythes  and  pikes  to  rescue  the 
king  from  the  mob;  and  he  overawed  all  his  neighbors 
who  took  a  different  view. 

He  also  wrought  through  the  press.  The  so-called 
" Journal  of  the  Cross"  (Kreuz-Z eitung) ,  was,  and  still 
is,  one  of  the  great  reactionary  newspapers  of  Prussia, 
the  organ  of  high  Lutheranism  and  of  unbridled  power 
in  church  and  state ;  for  this  Bismarck  wrote  many  arti- 
cles, clear,  pungent,  and  cogent ;  though  at  times  whimsi- 
cal, they  were  sure  to  arouse  and  bind  together  conserva- 
tive ultraists. 

But  the  revolution  took  its  course.  The  king  submitted 
to  abject  humiliation  in  presence  of  the  mob  which  be- 
sieged his  palace,  allowed  his  troops  to  be  sent  away, 
consented  to  a  constitution  and  called  a  Prussian  Diet, — 
not,  like  the  poor  old  United  Prussian  Diet,  with  merely 
advisory  powers,  but  a  parliament  for  actual  legislation. 

In  the  Prussian  Diet,  Bismarck,  even  while  merely  a 
substitute  deputy,  won  speedy  recognition  as  a  leader. 
On  the  claims  of  the  people  to  be  represented,  on  the 
ballot  box  as  a  means  of  choosing  legislators,  on  the  deci- 
sion of  state  questions  by  majorities,  on  establishing 
periodical  sessions,  he  poured  contempt  constantly  and 
loudly;  Frederick  the  Great  was  still  his  ideal:  not  the 
Parliament,  but  the  Army,  was  to  uplift  the  country.1 

i  On  all  Bismarck's  early  parliamentary  efforts  an  intensely  interesting 
light  is  thrown  by  his  letters  to  his  intended  wife.  See  The  Love  Letters 
of  Bismarck,  New  York,  1901.  For  peculiarly  engaging  pictures  of  his 
family  life,  see  especially  Keudell. 


414  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

It  was  not  a  case  of  bark  worse  than  bite.    Worse  than 
his  talk  was  his  action.     Never  was  intriguer  more  per- 
sistent.    Night  and  day,  when  not  stirring  up  resistance 
to   constitutionalism  in  the  Diet,  he  was   rallying  his 
friends  on  the  lower  Elbe,  or  at  Potsdam,  or  at  Berlin, 
against   all   efforts   for   constitutional   liberty,   whether 
rational  or  irrational.     Nothing  but  his   sincerity  and 
force  saved  him  from  becoming  ridiculous  as  a  busybody. 
During  the  revolutionary  days  he  went  disguised  into 
the  mob  and  forced  his  way  into  the  presence  of  generals, 
ministers,  princes,  and  the  king  himself.     On  one  occasion 
he  so  reproached  His  Majesty  for  concessions  to  the  rev- 
olution that  the  Queen  rebuked  him  for  impudence.     He 
drew  tears  from  the  eyes  of  the  two  future  emperors  by 
reciting  reactionary  verses  to  them.     He  was  deeply  in 
earnest:  rising  to  speak  in  the  Diet  his  voice  at  times 
faltered  and  once  at  least  he  shed  tears.     The  extremists 
on  the  liberal  side  in  the  Diet  gave  him  abundant  texts 
and  chances,  for  most  of  them  were  wont  to  take  the 
second  step  before  they  had  taken  the  first.    In  palaces 
and  in  barracks,  he  urged,  with  shrewd  plans  and  bitter 
taunts,  the  most  desperate  measures,  and,  at  last,  seemed 
successful;   for,   with   the   king's    permission,    Marshal 
Wrangel,  a  tough,  swaggering  old  soldier,  turned  the 
Prussian  Diet  out  of  doors.     Even  this  did  not  satisfy 
Bismarck :  he  showed  disappointment  that  there  had  been 
no  bloodshed ;  his  wish  was  that  a  lesson  should  be  writ- 
ten in  blood  which  would  last  for  a  generation,  and  his 
favorite  plan  was  to  stir  the  mob  to  madness  and  then  to 
crush  it  with  the  army. 

There  was  no  need  of  bloodshed.  The  people  at  large 
were  tired  of  talk  and  sick  with  uncertainty; — and,  be- 
side that,  the  king  had  won  them  over  by  again  swal- 
lowing his  feudal  formulas,  granting  a  fairly  good  consti- 
tution, and  calling  a  new  election.  To  the  new  Prussian 
Diet  thus  called  His  Majesty's  loyal  subjects  gratefully 


BISMARCK  415 

sent  a  reactionary  majority,  and  in  the  midst  of  it — at 
last  as  a  full  member — came  Bismarck. 

It  was  a  triumph  for  him,  but  in  spite  of  it  the  stars  in 
their  courses  fought  against  his  ideas:  the  king's  new 
constitution  seemed  to  betray  them,  and  even  the  reac- 
tionary ministers,  whom  Bismarck  had  aided  to  bring  it 
in,  soon  began  making  concessions  to  the  modern  spirit. 
During  long  years  all  was  chaotic, — strong  men  fighting 
in  clouds  and  darkness  with  no  clear  purpose  and  toward 
no  definite  end. 

While  this  fiasco  was  taking  place  at  Berlin,  another 
was  beginning  at  Frankfort-on-Main.  At  this  ancient 
imperial  city,  as  we  have  seen,  there  met,  in  May  of  1848, 
a  Federal  German  Parliament  with  aspirations  to  estab- 
lish German  liberty  and  unity.  Toward  all  its  activi- 
ties Bismarck  showed  the  same  feelings  as  towards  sim- 
ilar efforts  in  the  Prussian  Diet.  All  its  efforts  he  op- 
posed with  scoffing  and  bitter  irony,  and,  when  the  Parlia- 
ment tendered  the  imperial  crown  to  the  Prussian  king,  he 
fought  its  acceptance  passionately — his  especial  ground 
of  opposition  being  that  a  crown  coming  from  the  Ger- 
man people  represented  popular  sovereignty.  In  one  of 
his  speeches  he  said,  "The  Frankfort  crown  may  be 
brilliant,  but  the  gold  which  gives  it  genuineness  must 
first  be  got  by  melting  down  the  crown  of  Prussia,"  and, 
continuing  his  scoffs  at  the  idea  of  accomplishing  German 
unity  by  parliamentary  methods,  he  expressed  his  "hope 
to  God  that  Prussians  would  remain  Prussians  long  after 
the  Frankfort  constitution  has  mouldered  away  like  a 
withered  autumn  leaf." 

The  old  federation  having  evaporated  into  thin  air 
during  the  Eevolution  of  1848  and  the  national  parlia- 
ment then  established  having,  as  we  have  seen,  gone  to 
pieces  at  Frankfort  and  Stuttgart,  chaos  came  again. 
There  was  an  "assembly"  at  Gotha,  an  "alliance  of  three 
kings"  (Prussia,  Saxony,  and  Hanover),  an  "adhesion" 


416  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

to  this  of  twenty-eight  princelings  inclined  to  Prussia,  a 
quasi  league  of  Bavaria  and  Wiirteinberg  with  sundry 
princelings  inclined  to  Austria,  and  finally,  in  1850,  a 
new  German  parliament  called  by  the  Prussian  king  at 
Erfurt.  This  derived  some  prestige  from  sitting  in  the 
old  church  of  the  Augustines  made  memorable  by  Luther, 
and  it  was  in  one  respect  strikingly  unlike  its  predecessor 
at  Frankfort : — that  sat  over  a  year ;  this  lasted  hardly 
a  month — its  only  important  work  being  to  consider  a 
ready-made,  cut-and-dried,  spick-and-span  constitution 
for  the  German  nation,  proposed  by  King  Frederick 
William  but  entangled  in  manifold  difficulties.  To  this 
body  came  Bismarck,  simply  to  denounce  every  feature, 
and,  especially,  every  liberal  feature  of  the  proposed 
instrument.  Characteristic  of  him,  as  he  then  was,  were 
his  diatribes  against  the  right  of  public  meeting,  which 
he  stigmatized  as  "a  fire-bellows  of  democracy,"  and 
against  the  German  tricolored  flag, — which  he  held  up  to 
scorn  as  a  "badge  of  rebellion."  Though  the  more  lib- 
eral view  nominally  prevailed  and  the  new  constitution 
was  then  and  there  approved,  Bismarck's  sarcasms 
seemed  to  wither  it ;  it  disappeared  in  the  gusts  of  polit- 
ical passion  and  was  never  heard  of  more. 

"Worse  than  this,  his  hatred  of  revolution  made  him, 
throughout  this  first  parliamentary  period  of  his, — from 
1847  to  1851, — in  whatever  deliberative  body  he  sat,  not 
only  the  opponent  of  national  unity  but  the  champion 
of  Austrian  supremacy.  Worst  of  all,  when  Austria,  at 
Olmiitz,  with  the  aid  of  Russia,  put  upon  Prussia  the 
most  shameful  humiliation  in  her  history — forcing  her 
to  cease  all  efforts  toward  national  unity,  to  yield  to 
Austrian  threats  and  to  go  back  submissively  to  the  old 
Frankfort  Diet,  with  its  envoys  sitting  about  the  old 
green  table  and  representing,  not  the  people,  but  the 
reigning  princes — Bismarck  still  supported  Austria. 

Although  in  his  speeches  and  writings  lie  did  not  spare 


BISMARCK  417 

the  weakness  of  the  King  and  his  ministers,  spoke  caus- 
tically against  their  policy,  and  voted  at  a  session  of  the 
Prussian  Diet  in  a  minority  of  two  against  a  vote  of 
thanks  to  His  Majesty  for  granting  a  constitution,  King 
Frederick  William  now  saw  in  him  a  man  likely  to  be  of 
use,  and  in  1851  sent  him  to  the  revived  green-table  Con- 
federation Diet  at  Frankfort,  first  as  Councillor  of  the 
Prussian  Embassy,  and  shortly  afterward  as  Ambas- 
sador. Here  was  to  be  the  young  statesman's  work  for 
the  next  eight  years.  It  was  an  amazing  promotion.  At 
thirty-six  years  of  age,  an  impoverished  and  widely  dis- 
credited country  squire,  with  no  powerful  connections 
and  no  diplomatic  experience,  he  was  thus  given  the  most 
important  position  in  the  whole  diplomatic  service  of 
Prussia. 


27 


II 

OF  all  Bismarck's  qualities  revealed  in  his  new  posi- 
tion, most  surprising  were  his  insight  and  foresight, 
and  most  imposing  were  his  courage  in  breasting  oppo- 
sition and  his  force  in  breaking  it.  His  insight  and  fore- 
sight seemed  due  to  intuition — to  sudden  flashes  which 
lighted  up  his  course  and  determined  his  conduct;  but, 
in  a  very  real  sense,  they  were  in  most  cases  the  outcome 
of  study  and  reflection, — sometimes  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  events  of  a  year,  sometimes  focused  upon  the  occur- 
rence of  a  moment. 

His  courage  never  faltered.  Whether  in  resisting  the 
Parliament,  or  the  press,  or  the  mob,  or  assassins  in  the 
streets,  or  kings  and  emperors  in  their  cabinets,  it  was 
ever  the  same.  "When,  later  in  life,  he  told  Europe,  "We 
Germans  fear  God  and  naught  beside,"  he  but  read  into 
German  history  his  own  character. 

Striking  examples  of  these  qualities  were  seen  early. 
He  had  entered  the  Diet  as  a  friend  of  Austria,  as  a  sup- 
porter of  its  policy,  as  a  believer  in  the  value  of  its  alli- 
ance with  Prussia;  indeed,  he  had  defended  Austria  in 
the  Olmiitz  matter,  when  she  was  really  indefensible; 
his  theory  being  that  Austria  was  willing  to  support 
Prussia  in  German  affairs  and  that  Prussia  should  sup- 
port Austria  in  foreign  affairs. 

But  now  came  to  him  a  revelation.  He  found  that  the 
old  Austrian  hatred  of  Prussia,  which  had  begun  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  and  which  had  been 
increased  by  the  successes  of  Frederick  the  Great,  was 
still  venomous ;  that  Austria  opposed,  openly  or  secretly, 
every  measure  looking  to  the  better  development  of  Prus- 
sia or  to  the  extension  of  her  legitimate  influence;  that. 

418 


BISMARCK  419 

the  lesser  powers  cowered  before  her,  and  in  the  sessions 
of  the  Diet  constantly  voted  for  her  against  their  own 
convictions:  and  he  found,  also,  that  Prussia  had  grad- 
ually become  one  of  these  lesser  powers.  Outward  and 
visible  signs  of  this  Austrian  supremacy  in  the  Frankfort 
Diet  were  comical.  The  representative  of  Austria  al- 
ways presided,  and  seemed  to  think  it  his  duty  to  mag- 
nify his  office.  At  such  pretensions  Bismarck  struck  at 
once.  In  some  of  his  conversations  toward  the  end  of 
his  life,  he  enjoyed  giving  accounts  of  the  farces  in  which 
he  thus  engaged.  One  well  known  story  was  of  an 
Austrian  presiding  officer  and  his  cigar.  A  precedent 
had  grown  up, — and  the  Diet  was  exceedingly  tenacious 
of  precedents, — that  the  Austrian  president  might  smoke 
while  in  the  chair,  but  that  on  no  account  might  any  other 
Ambassador  follow  his  example:  seeing  this,  Bismarck 
pulled  a  cigar  from  his  pocket,  went  up  to  the  president, 
asked  him  for  a  light,  obtained  it,  and  calmly  smoked  on 
during  the  sessions  ever  afterward.  Gradually  his  col- 
leagues mustered  up  equal  courage,  and  soon  all  were  in 
this  respect  equal.  One  very  eminent  Austrian  presi- 
dent of  the  Diet,  Count  Prokesch,  was  also  brought  to 
his  bearings.  Having  altered  the  record  of  the  Congress, 
in  a  way  favorable  to  Austrian  views,  and  attention  hav- 
ing been  called  to  this,  Prokesch  thought  to  overawe  his 
colleagues  by  saying:  "If  that  record  is  not  correct,  I 
am  a  liar":  whereupon  Bismarck,  looking  him  full  in  the 
face,  answered,  "Exactly  so,  Your  Excellency!"  All 
present  were  aghast.  A  duel  was  expected.  But  Pro- 
kesch thought  it  best  to  set  the  matter  right, — when  Bis- 
marck calmly  continued  to  insist  upon  it.  Prokesch 's 
successor,  Count  Rechberg,  next  tried  the  same  line  of 
conduct,  and  in  a  bitter  debate  went  so  far  that  a  chal- 
lenge passed.  Bismarck  insisted  that  a  protocol  be 
drawn  and  pistols  brought  at  once,  whereupon  Rechberg 
thought  better  of  it  and  no  harm  resulted.     Typical  was 


420  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Bismarck's  abolition  of  another  custom  implying  Aus- 
trian supremacy.  The  Austrian  president  was  wont, 
when  any  of  his  colleagues  visited  him,  to  remain  sitting 
and  to  allow  the  visitor  to  remain  standing.  But,  when 
this  was  attempted  on  Bismarck,  he  quietly  seated  him- 
self, and  so  began  a  new  custom.  In  all  this  his  great 
personality,  his  reserved  force,  his  perfect  self-posses- 
sion, his  quickness  in  repartee,  his  humor,  his  readiness 
in  every  sort  of  resource,  made  him  invincible. 

His  letters  to  his  wife,  his  sister,  and  his  intimate 
friends,  as  well  as  his  despatches,  now  began  to  show 
utter  contempt  for  the  green-table  Diet.  He  constantly 
complained  of  its  pretentiousness,  its  uselessness,  its  pet- 
tifoggery, its  quackery ;  and  he  uttered  his  growing  con- 
viction that  the  only  solution  of  all  the  existing  difficulties 
would  be  found  in  an  agreement  which  should  secure  bet- 
ter treatment  to  Prussia,  or  in  a  war  which  should  rid 
Germany  of  Austria.  Among  the  many  evidences  of  his 
feeling,  one  became  widely  known.  At  a  public  function, 
an  Austrian  officer,  pointing  to  the  few  and  scattered 
medals  and  crosses  on  Bismarck's  coat,  asked  him  sneer- 
ingly  if  he  had  won  them  in  battle.  "Yes,"  answered 
Bismarck,  "in  battle  against  the  enemy  here  in  Frank- 
fort." 

More  and  more  he  now  insisted  in  his  letters  and  de- 
spatches that  the  existing  system  could  not  last;  that  it 
gave  no  chance  for  a  normal  development  of  Prussia; 
that  the  votes  of  the  minor  states  were  directed  by  Aus- 
tria against  every  Prussian  interest  and  aspiration.  Day 
after  day  he  nagged  the  Austrians  exquisitely, — and 
quarrels  resulted  which  seemed  at  one  time  likely  to 
force  both  nations  into  war.  This  attitude  of  his  in  the 
Diet  brought  upon  him  such  personal  unpopularity  that 
stones  were  thrown  at  him  and  his  wife  in  the  streets  of 
Frankfort;  but  his  composure  was  not  disturbed.  Four 
octavos  of  Bismarck's  despatches  given  to  the  world  by 


BISMARCK  421 

Herr  von  Poschinger  show  that,  from  first  to  last,  he 
was  completely  master  of  himself:  as  literature,  as  prac- 
tical political  philosophy,  humorous,  witty,  penetrative,, 
convincing,  they  combine  more  striking  characteristics 
than  any  other  similar  collection,  and  the  best  of  them 
were  written  during  this  Frankfort  period. 

But,  while  the  Frankfort  Diet  was  dragging  wearily 
along,  there  came  the  Crimean  War,  and  this  brought 
out  anew  Bismarck's  foresight  and  courage. 

In  this  struggle  between  Great  Britain,  France,  Sar- 
dinia, and  Turkey  on  one  side,  and  Russia  on  the  other, 
the  three  western  powers  put  forth  their  utmost  efforts 
to  induce  Prussia  and  Austria  to  join  them.  To  these 
efforts  Austria  secretly  yielded,  her  old  dread  of  Russia 
prevailing  over  her  gratitude  for  the  rescue  from  Hun- 
gary which  Russia  had  brought  her  during  the  Revolu- 
tion year  of  1849,  and  for  the  victory  over  Prussia  which 
Russia  had  won  for  her  at  Olmiitz  in  1850.  For  a  time 
Prussia  also  seemed  likely  to  yield:  the  Chevalier  Bun- 
sen,  minister  at  the  court  of  Great  Britain,  one  of  King 
Frederick  "William's  most  cherished  advisers,  seemed 
likely  to  turn  the  King's  mind  against  Prussia's  powerful 
eastern  neighbor.  But  now  Bismarck  intervened.  In 
letters,  despatches,  conversations,  he  showed  the  King 
and  his  advisers  that  Prussia  had  no  concern  in  the  ques- 
tion at  issue,  but  that  it  was  her  interest  to  strengthen 
friendly  relations  with  Russia.  Bismarck,  of  all  men, 
saw  here  a  great  opportunity.  Could  he  win  the  grati- 
tude of  the  Russian  Czar,  Russia  might  allow  Prussia, 
in  what  Bismarck  regarded  as  the  inevitable  coming 
struggle  with  Austria,  to  fight  without  intervention, — 
might,  indeed,  possibly  favor  Prussia.  This  was  not  an 
argument  he  could  avow,  but  it  was  none  the  less  that 
which  led  him  to  exert  himself  to  such  good  purpose  that 
Prussia  finally  remained  neutral  during  the  war.  Bitter 
hostility  was  brought  upon  him  thereby,  even  in  Ger- 


422  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

many;  while  in  Great  Britain  revenge  was  taken  by 
every  form  of  attack,  from  parliamentary  speeches  and 
leaders  in  the  Times  to  cartoons  in  Punch.  From  France 
came  every  sort  of  insult.1  His  reply  to  one  of  these 
French  attacks  became  widely  known.  The  French  Am- 
bassador, the  Marquis  de  Moustier,  in  a  heated  discus- 
sion, charged  him  with  leading  Prussia  to  another  Jena, 
whereupon  Bismarck  instantly  replied,  "Why  not  to 
another  Leipzig  or  another  Waterloo?" 

The  German  statesman  could  afford  to  take  all  these 
attacks  with  equanimity;  for  from  the  first  it  was  clear 
that  he  had  secured  the  gratitude  of  the  Russian  Czar. 
One  evidence  of  this  was  seen  the  day  after  the  death  of 
Emperor  Nicholas — in  the  midst  of  the  Crimean  War — 
at  the  first  reception  of  the  diplomatic  corps  in  the  Win- 
ter Palace  by  the  new  Emperor,  Alexander  II.  The 
young  sovereign,  having  given  the  Austrian  Minister  a 
most  cutting  reproof,  recalling  bitterly  the  ingratitude 
of  his  country,  turned  to  the  Prussian  Minister  and 
thanked  him  effusively  for  the  kindness  which  the  Prus- 
sian King  and  his  government  had  shown  to  Russia  in 
this  her  hour  of  trial.2 

More  and  more  Bismarck's  ability  was  now  recognized 
at  the  Prussian  capital.     Partly  in  order  to  settle  tariff 

i  For  a  very  striking  caricature  in  Punch,  showing  the  bitterness  of 
the  time,  see  the  cartoon,  "Le  Roi  Clicquot,"  representing  the  Prussian 
King  as  drunk,  maudlin,  staggering,  his  crown  falling  from  his  head, 
and  a  bottle  of  champagne  in  his  hand.  In  the  Library  of  Cornell  Uni- 
versity are  three  folio  volumes  of  German  caricatures,  covering  the  Revo- 
lution of  1848;  in  these  Bismarck  figures  rarely,  but  in  the  neighboring 
volumes  of  Kladderadatsch,  beginning  a  little  later,  the  young  statesman 
has  evidently  become  a  man  of  mark.  See  also  Walther,  Bismarck  in  der 
Earikatur, — and  Grand  Carteret,  Bismarck  en  Caricature.  It  may  also 
be  mentioned  that  in  the  Cornell  library  are  five  elephant  folios  con- 
taining caricatures  collected  at  Paris  during  the  Franco-Prussian  War, 
and  especially  during  the  rule  of  the  Commune,  and  that,  in  these,  Bis- 
marck figures  largely  and  satanically. 

2  The  present  writer,  who  witnessed  this  scene,  has  given  a  detailed 
account  of  it  in  his  published  Autobiography. 


BISMARCK  423 

difficulties,  but  mainly  to  make  him  better  acquainted  with 
the  politics  and  statesmen  of  Prussia's  great  rival,  King 
Frederick  William  sent  him  for  a  month  to  Vienna  as  a 
temporary  Ambassador,  giving  him  a  letter  of  credence 
not  of  the  usual  perfunctory  sort,  but  a  personal  epistle, 
impressing  upon  the  Austrian  Emperor  Bismarck's  loy- 
alty to  Prussia,  and  his  reverence  for  Austria.  This  en- 
sured courteous  treatment;  but,  though  he  used  this  ad- 
vantage fully  in  the  endeavor  to  induce  the  Vienna  gov- 
ernment to  pursue  a  more  rational  policy  in  German 
matters,  he  now  satisfied  himself  finally  that  a  peaceful 
solution  of  questions  between  Austria  and  Prussia  would 
be  impossible. 

During  all  this  Frankfort  period  he  made  the  best 
possible  use  of  his  vacations,  both  as  regarded  his  health 
and  his  knowledge  of  men  and  affairs :  we  hear  of  him  at 
nearly  all  the  courts  of  Europe ;  in  danger  of  robbers  in 
Hungary;  swimming  in  the  Danube,  in  the  Ehine,  and  in 
the  North  Sea;  hunting  in  the  Scandinavian  countries 
and  in  Eussia ;  flitting  between  Frankfort  and  Berlin,  and 
to  other  capitals, — always  making  good  use  of  his  ob- 
serving faculties  and  of  his  acquaintance  with  leading 
men. 

Of  all  these  plunges  into  European  life,  the  most  im- 
portant was  his  visit  to  the  Paris  Exposition  in  1855, 
when  he  met  Napoleon  III  for  the  first  time — thus  open- 
ing the  way  to  the  fruitful  interviews  of  later  years.  On 
his  return,  always  having  in  mind  a  future  contest  with 
Austria,  in  which  it  would  be  absolutely  necessary  for 
Prussia  to  secure  French  neutrality,  he  advised  the  Prus- 
sian government  to  cultivate  the  friendship  of  Napoleon 
III.  For  this  policy  he  received  much  abuse — his  old 
friends,  who  had  adored  him  as  a  devotee  of  divine  right 
and  legitimacy,  turning  from  him  as  a  supporter  of  Bona- 
partism,  the  worst  enemy  of  both;  but  he  remained  none 
the  less  firm  in  his  opinion. 


421  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

In  1857  came  an  apparent  calamity.  Frederick  Wil- 
liam IV  under  the  stress  of  that  troubled  time  having 
lost  his  reason,  his  brother,  Crown  Prince  William,  was 
given  virtually  royal  power,  and  in  the  following  year 
became  Regent  of  the  Kingdom.  This  change  seemed 
especially  injurious  to  Bismarck's  interests;  and  all  the 
more  so  when  the  new  Regent  recalled  him  from  the 
Frankfort  Diet  and  sent  him  as  Ambassador  to  St.  Peters- 
burg. Of  this  period  Bismarck  was  wont  to  say  that  the 
Regent,  fearing  his  fervent  hostility  to  Austria,  "  thought 
it  best,  for  a  time,  to  put  him  on  ice."  But  before  going 
Bismarck  wrote  to  the  Prussian  minister  of  foreign  af- 
fairs letters  summing  up  the  result  of  his  observations 
and  experiences  at  Frankfort,  with  a  most  bitter  indict- 
ment of  Austrian  aims  and  methods,  and  openly  declared 
that  sooner  or  later  the  question  at  issue  must  demand 
treatment  "with  fire  and  sword":  these  despatches  made 
a  deep  impression  on  Regent  William,  and  caused  Bis- 
marck to  be  remembered;  they  were  destined  to  become 
part  of  a  new  Prussian  political  gospel. 

A  good  opportunity  for  a  strong  man  to  carry  out  this 
policy  against  Austria  was  now  offered.  The  war  pro- 
moted by  Cavour  was  beginning  between  Austria  and 
Italy.  Had  Bismarck  then  been  called  to  the  head  of 
affairs  in  Berlin,  he  would  doubtless  have  seized  this  oc- 
casion to  give  Prussia  the  supremacy  in  Germany;  but, 
as  it  was,  he  could  only  exercise  an  influence  through  his 
despatches  from  St.  Petersburg.  The  Crimean  War  had 
ended  in  1856,  but  Russian  resentment  toward  Austria 
and  gratitude  toward  Prussia  remained.  This  gratitude 
he  did  his  best  to  increase ;  all  ranks,  from  the  Emperor 
down,  received  him  with  the  greatest  cordiality;  in  one 
of  his  home  letters,  he  says:  "Life  here  is  like  being  in 
Abraham's  bosom." 

In  his  despatches  to  the  Prussian  government  he  con- 
stantly urges  it  to  keep  out  of  the  war  then  going  on 


BISMARCK  425 

between  Austria  on  one  side  and  France  and  Piedmont  on 
the  other,  and  to  make  the  most  of  it  in  pushing  Prussia's 
opportunity;  so  earnest  was  he  in  this  policy  that  hos- 
tility at  home  against  him  was  increased,  and  it  became  a 
common  taunt  against  him  that  he  was  ''more  French 
than  German." 

In  spite  of  all  his  advice,  the  Prussian  government  and 
people  became  more  and  more  inclined  to  interfere  in 
favor  of  Austria.  The  victories  of  the  allied  French  and 
Italians  at  Magenta  and  Solferino  over  the  Austrians 
naturally  aroused  a  widespread  pan-Germanic  feeling. 
The  German  press  stirred  it  vigorously.  It  was  the  old 
story.  Hundreds  of  newspaper  writers  throughout  the 
German  states,  sitting  safely  and  snugly  in  their  various 
dens,  were  exceedingly  anxious  to  send  other  men  to  fight 
"for  German  brotherhood  and  honor." 

Luckily,  Austrian  cunning  detected  in  this  a  serious 
danger;  squabbles  arising  between  the  two  great  Ger- 
man powers  regarding  the  command  of  the  proposed 
combination  of  Prussian  and  Austrian  armies,  Austria 
became  more  fearful  of  Prussia  than  of  France  and  set- 
tled the  whole  matter  by  giving  up  Lombardy  to  Italy  at 
the  peace  of  Villafranca. 

In  1861  Frederick  William  died  and  Eegent  William 
crowned  himself  at  Konigsberg  as  King  of  Prussia. 
Menzel,  the  greatest  of  Prussian  painters,  commemorated 
this  event  in  a  picture  which  attracted  European  atten- 
tion at  Paris  and  was  finally  given  a  place  of  honor  in  the 
royal  residence  at  Berlin.  King  William  in  full  robes 
stands  before  the  high  altar,  takes  thence  his  crown,  and 
places  it  upon  his  own  head.  Of  all  the  Prussian  mon- 
archs  he  was  the  only  one  thus  consecrated,  save  the  first, 
who  had  assumed  the  title  of  Frederick  I  a  hundred  and 
sixty  years  before,  and  the  reason  for  this  revived  cere- 
monial was  that  the  new  King  wished, — especially  at  the 
close  of  a  revolutionary  period, — to  assert  more  earnestly 


426  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

than  ever  the  origin  of  his  sovereignty,  as  not  in  the 
popular  will,  but  in  the  grace  of  God.  Bismarck  was 
present  and  doubtless  was  confirmed  in  his  monarchical 
sentiments  thereby ;  but  a  new  feeling  had  arisen  in  him : 
while  remaining  a  devoted  Prussian,  he  had  become  more 
and  more  German,  and,  while  holding  strongly  to  his  mo- 
narchical ideas,  he  had  begun  to  believe  more  and  more  in 
popular  support.  His  was  the  same  feeling  which  had 
led  Stein,  fifty  years  before,  to  exert  himself  to  make 
subjects  into  citizens;  and  at  last  we  have  a  statement 
from  Bismarck  that  Prussia's  main  alliance  hencefor- 
ward should  be,  not  with  the  German  rulers,  but  with 
the  German  people. 

The  new  King,  William  I,  though  not  possessing  the 
graces  of  his  predecessor,  was  a  more  manly  and  soldierly 
character,  with  infinitely  more  force,  common  sense,  and 
penetration — one  of  his  most  marked  qualities  being 
his  ability  to  choose  strong  men  and  to  stand  by  them. 
He  soon  discerned  the  characteristics  of  his  ambassador 
at  St.  Petersburg  and  after  Bismarck's  stay  of  three 
years  in  that  capital  recalled  him  to  Berlin  with  the 
thought  of  making  him  a  cabinet  minister. 

But  there  came  delay.  In  after  years  Bismarck  said 
that  his  royal  master  had  dreaded  him  as  "a  political 
rowdy,"  and  therefore  it  was  that  this  period  of  uncer- 
tainty was  tided  over  by  making  him  Ambassador  at 
Paris.  This  jumped  well  with  Bismarck's  humor:  in 
view  of  eventualities  he  wished  to  know  more  of  France 
and  of  Napoleon  III, — evidently  hoping  to  win  the 
French  Emperor  over  to  his  scheme  for  driving  Austria 
out  of  Germany.  His  stay  in  France  was  short,  only 
about  three  months;  yet  during  this  period  he  learned 
much.  He  studied  the  French  Emperor  closely,  walking 
and  talking  with  him,  unfolding  various  plans  to  him, 
drawing  various  vague  schemes  and  dreams  from  him, 
presenting  skillful  baits  to  his  ambition,  suggesting  rea- 


BISMARCK  427 

sons  why  France  should  allow  Prussia  to  have  her  way 
in  German  matters. 

Curious  were  the  estimates  the  two  men  made  of  each 
other:  Napoleon  insisted  that  Bismarck  was  "not  se- 
rious"; Bismarck  spoke  later  of  Napoleon  as  "a  great, 
unrecognized  incapacity."  * 

Meantime  King  William  had  become  uneasy  at  various 
weaknesses  in  the  Prussian  army.  As  far  back  as  the 
attempted  mobilization  during  the  war  between  Austria 
on  one  side  and  France  and  Italy  on  the  other,  these 
weaknesses  had  become  apparent,  and  the  King  and  his 
war  minister,  Eoon,  were  seeking  to  increase  the  army 
largely  and  to  reorganize  it.  But  the  liberals  in  the 
Prussian  Parliament  opposed  this:  while  willing  to  in- 
crease the  army  temporarily,  they  dreaded  to  do  so  per- 
manently; and  therefore  it  was  that,  while  returning 
from  a  vacation  in  Spain,  Bismarck  suddenly  received  a 
summons  to  come  home  at  once.  Arriving  in  Berlin,  he 
found  the  King  in  despair.  Coming  into  the  royal  pres- 
ence, he  found  His  Majesty  not  only  greatly  depressed, 
but  with  his  abdication  already  prepared.  The  King  had 
done  his  best  to  oppose  Parliament  constitutionally,  had 
even  thought  of  opposing  it  unconstitutionally;  but  his 
family,  including  the  Queen,  the  Crown  Prince,  and  the 
Crown  Prince's  English  wife,  were  strongly  against 
him.  They  had  presented  to  him  their  English  theories, 
had  drawn  for  him  historical  lessons  from  the  revolutions 
in  1648  and  1688,  which  had  put  an  end  to  the  Stuart 
dynasty — especially  they  had  pointed  out  to  him  that 
these  revolutions  involved  the  same  principles,  indeed 
the  same  lines  of  action,  as  those  now  contemplated  in 
Prussia. 

At  first,  Bismarck,  supposing  that  the  King  would  not 

i  For  a  very  minute  and  interesting  account  of  these  and  later  interviews, 
especially  at  Biarritz,  see  Von  Poschinger,  Bismarck-Portefeuille,  vol.  i, 
pp.  143  and  following. 


4-28  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

support  him  in  strong  measures,  refused  to  become  Prime 
Minister ;  but,  when  the  King  asked  him  if  he  was  ready 
to  govern  against  a  majority  of  the  national  representa- 
tives in  Parliament,  Bismarck  promptly  answered  that 
he  was,  and  the  abdication  paper  was  destroyed. 

Thus  it  was  that  in  1862  Bismarck  committed  himself 
to  a  contest  against  the  Prussian  legislative  body,  which 
believed  itself  the  savior  of  the  national  constitution. 
For  a  time,  his  main  effort  seems  to  have  been  to  keep  up 
the  courage  of  the  King,  and,  in  a  talk  between  them 
about  the  English  Civil  "War  and  the  fate  of  Charles  I 
and  Strafford,  Bismarck  avowed  his  willingness  to  suffer 
the  fate  of  Strafford  in  support  of  the  rights  of  the 
sovereign,  whereupon  the  old  Prussian  feeling  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great  and  the  Great  Elector  asserted  itself  in 
"William's  breast,  and  it  was  determined  between  him  and 
his  minister  to  fight  the  lower  house  of  the  Prussian  Par- 
liament to  the  bitter  end,  constitution  or  no  constitution. 
The  King  at  once  dismissed  the  existing  ministry  and 
appointed  as  his  Prime  Minister  Bismarck,  who  now  be- 
gan ruling  in  defiance  of  the  majority,  and  raising  money 
without  a  parliamentary  budget.1 

Never  has  any  parliamentary  struggle  so  desperate 
occurred  in  any  other  modern  nation.  In  his  first  speech 
after  coming  to  power,  Bismarck  said:  " Prussia  must 
collect  its  strength  for  the  favorable  moment,  which  has 
already  several  times  been  allowed  to  pass;  Prussia's 
borders  are  not  adapted  to  sound  health  in  the  political 
body.  It  is  not  by  speeches  and  resolutions  that  the  great 
questions  of  the  times  are  to  be  decided — that  was  the 
mistake  of  1848  and  1849 — but  by  blood  and  iron."     For 

i  For  a  thrilling  account  of  Bismarck's  conversion  of  the  King  to  ex- 
treme measures  in  the  railway  train  at  Jiitcrbogk  and  at  the  palace  of 
Babelsberg,  see  Bismarck's  Reflections  and  Reminiscences,  Tauchnitz 
edit.,  vol.  i,  pp.  294-297,  313-317;  also  Busch,  Bismarck  and  Some  Secret 
Payes  of  If  is  History,  vol.  ii,  pp.  414,  415. 


BISMARCK  429 

four  years  (1862-66)  he  governed  in  spite  of  the  opposing 
majority;    twice  he  dissolved  Parliament  and  sent  its 
members  back  to  their  constituents;   at  his  own  will  he 
took  from  the  treasury  money  for  carrying  on  the  admin- 
istration, including  the  reorganization  of  the  army.     In 
Parliament  he  defied  the  presiding  officer,   and,  when 
called  to  order  by  him,  declared  that  he  acknowledged  no 
master  save  the  King.     When  his  opponents  denounced 
him  he  often  went  out  to  smoke  in  the  lobby.     He  gave  an 
interpretation  of  the  constitution  which  was  thought  an 
insult  by  all  who  heard  it.     He  hurled  at  his  enemies  epi- 
thets which  astounded  Europe — among  others  the  phrase, 
" Catilinarian   existences."     The   press   he   muzzled   or 
bribed.     The  judicious  grieved,  the  doctrinaires  raged, 
the  mob  insulted  him  in  the  streets,  hatred  against  him  ex- 
tended so  far  and  wide  that  from  Spain  came  a  threat  to 
murder  him.     Even  more  serious  were  the  efforts  at  Ber- 
lin to  reach  him  by  special  law,  and  the  fate  of  Strafford, 
which  King  William  had  foretold  for  him,  seemed  to  some 
of  his  friends  so  probable  that  they  advised  him  to  trans- 
fer his  estate  to  his  brother;  but  he  did  nothing  of  the 
kind  and  only  became  more  defiant  than  ever.     Honorable 
to  him  was  his  care,  while  fearlessly  exposing  himself,  to 
shield  the  monarchy.     He  took  the  responsibility.     He 
seemed  to  feel  that  it  might  lead  to  his  destruction — that 
he  might  be  sent  to  the  block  as  a  second  Strafford — but 
he  was  evidently  determined  that  King  William  should 
not  be  a  second  Charles  Stuart.1 

Meantime,  he  was  obliged  to  combat  extremists  on  his 
own  side.  The  old  Elector  of  Hesse  Cassel  persisting  in 
reactionary  follies  despite  remonstrances  from  King  Wil- 
liam and  disapproval  even  from  Austria,  Bismarck  sent 

i  For  Bismarck's  refusal  to  transfer  his  property  to  avoid  its  confisca- 
tion, see  his  Reflections  and  Reminiscences,  Tauchnitz  edition,  vol.  iii, 
p.  78,  and  Keudell,  Bismarck  et  sa  Famille,  p.  115. 


430  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

a  simple  military  courier  with  a  peremptory  summons, 
and  brought  him  to  terms  at  once. 

In  1863  came  a  new  outburst  of  hatred  against  him. 
The  Poles  arose  in  rebellion  against  Russia.  Bismarck 
undoubtedly  had  a  contempt  for  Polish  revolutionists, 
based  on  his  historical  knowledge  of  the  follies  which  had 
brought  Poland  to  ruin.  As  to  the  great  landowning 
class,  he  knew  that,  having  had  every  advantage  through- 
out hundreds  of  years, — with  a  vast  territory,  admirable 
seaports,  and  a  brave  people, — they  had  persisted,  despite 
repeated  warnings,  in  maintaining  anarchy  and  had  al- 
lowed their  country  to  become  the  chosen  seat  of  clerical 
and  aristocratic  tyranny.  As  to  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  he 
accepted  the  old  Silesian  proverb,  "Where  you  find  a 
peasantry  hopelessly  wretched,  you  find  them  hugging 
two  masters — the  priesthood  and  the  whiskey  bottle. ' ' 

But  what  was  far  more  to  Bismarck's  present  purpose, 
he  saw  in  this  rebellion  an  additional  chance  to  strengthen 
the  Prussian  sympathies  of  the  Czar,  so  that  there  should 
be  no  interference  when  the  grapple  with  Austria  should 
come :  he,  therefore,  arrayed  the  Prussian  power  in  alli- 
ance with  Russia  against  the  whole  Polish  uprising. 

At  this,  a  cry  of  horror  arose  from  millions  of  good  and 
kind  people  throughout  Europe,  and,  above  all,  in  France 
and  England.    All  to  no  purpose — Bismarck  stood  firm. 

In  the  world-wide  detestation  of  Bismarck  Austria 
now  saw  her  opportunity,  and  in  the  summer  of  1863  sum- 
moned at  Frankfort  a  meeting  of  the  reigning  princes 
and  representative  free  cities  of  Germany  to  consider  a 
new  and,  as  was  claimed,  more  liberal  project  of  a  Ger- 
man constitution.  But  Bismarck  had  in  his  mind  a  con- 
stitution for  Germany  widely  different  from  anything  that 
Austria  would  favor;  under  his  compelling  power,  King 
William,  sorely  against  his  will,  turned  with  affected 
contempt  from  his  brother  monarchs,  declined  taking 
part  in  this  meeting,  and  so  brought  the  project  to  naught. 


BISMARCK  431 

And  now,  toward  the  end  of  1863,  the  death  of  the  Dan- 
ish King,  Frederick  VII,  brought  on,  in  acute  form,  a 
danger  which  had  long  been  brooded  over  in  cabinets, 
fought  over  on  battlefields,  and  wrangled  over  among 
the  German  people  at  large — what  was  known  as  the 
Schleswig-Holstein  question. 

Of  the  myriad  subjects  which  had  tormented  German 
statesmen  and  diplomatists  during  the  middle  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  this  had  been  the  most  vexa- 
tious. Its  intricacies  were  proverbial.  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  was  credited  with  the  saying  that  but  two  men 
had  ever  understood  it, — himself  and  another, — that 
the  other  statesman  was  dead  and  that  he  himself  had 
forgotten  all  he  ever  knew  of  it.  There  were  rights  to 
sovereignty  under  Danish  Law  and  estoppels  under  Salic 
Law;  rights  under  German  Law  and  extinguishments  by 
treaty  or  purchase;  claims  to  the  Schleswig  duchy  as 
adjoining  Denmark  and  containing  a  considerable  admix- 
ture of  Danish  blood;  claims  to  the  Holstein  duchy  as 
adjoining  Germany  and  thoroughly  of  German  blood; 
rights  of  each  duchy,  which  implied  their  separation; 
rights  of  both  duchies,  which  implied  their  union.  There 
had  been  a  settlement  under  the  Treaty  of  Vienna,  in 
1815.  There  had  been  another  under  the  Treaty  of  Lon- 
don, in  1852.  There  had  been  interferences  from  Prus- 
sia, from  Austria,  from  Russia,  from  Sweden,  and  from 
Great  Britain,  and  bloody  battles  between  Germans  and 
Danes,  sometimes  one  being  uppermost,  sometimes  the 
other.  Throughout  Denmark  it  was  held  fanatically  that 
the  control  of  the  duchies  should  be  Danish;  throughout 
Germany  it  was  no  less  passionately  asserted  that  it 
should  be  German.  Learned  lawyers  wrote  convincing 
opinions  on  either  side;  on  both  sides  orators  moved 
men  to  desperation  with  the  wrongs  of  "our  Schleswig- 
Holstein  brothers";  poets  wrote  songs,  both  in  Germany 
and  Denmark,  which  "got  themselves  sung"  with  fervor, 

I 


432  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

with  rage, — even  with  tears.  The  King  of  Denmark, 
asserting  his  claims,  was  confronted  by  the  German 
Prince  of  Augnstenbnrg,  asserting  his  claims  no  less 
stoutly.  In  some  churches  the  official  prayers  were  put 
up  for  one ;  in  other  churches,  for  the  other. 

After  spasmodic  struggles  in  council-chambers  and  on 
battlefields  during  nearly  half  a  century,  the  agitation 
came  to  a  climax  in  1863-4,  and  Germany,  acting  through 
the  Federal  Council  at  Frankfort,  sent  Hanoverian  and 
Saxon  troops,  which  seemed  to  clear  the  way  for  "The 
Augustenburger"  as  the  rightful  sovereign.  But  this 
only  made  anarchy  more  virulent ;  Holstein  was  still  dis- 
satisfied and  Schleswig  in  more  hopeless  confusion  than 
ever. 

The  region  concerned,  including  the  two  main  divisions 
of  Holstein  and  Schleswig  and  the  little  duchy  of  Lau- 
enburg,  was  valuable :  there  was  a  territory  of  over  seven 
thousand  square  miles,  and  a  population  exceeding  a 
million — a  population  hardy,  sturdy,  brave,  God-fearing ; 
and  the  importance  of  people  and  territory  was  enor- 
mously increased  by  their  great  harbor  of  Kiel. 

The  claims  of  this  region  to  cast  in  its  lot  with  its 
neighbors  having  the  same  traditions  and  language  were 
now  recognized  by  a  statesman  who  could  do  something : 
now  came  one  of  Bismarck's  masterpieces.  Though 
Austria  and  Prussia  had  long  been  quarreling  at  Frank- 
fort and  were  especially  jealous  of  each  other  regarding 
this  region,  and  though  he  had  been  a  main  agent  in 
provoking  these  quarrels,  he  suddenly,  as  by  witchcraft, 
induced  Austria  to  join  Prussia  in  putting  an  end  to  all 
this  anarchy  and  folly.  Most  skillfully  he  played  on  the 
two  dominant  characteristics  of  Austrian  statesmen  at 
that  period:  first,  on  their  fear  that,  if  the  two  great 
powers  did  not  intervene,  Germany  might  rise  in  revolu- 
tion and  seize  the  duchies;  next,  on  their  dread  that 
Prussia  might  lead  alone  in  the  contest  and  thus  increase 


BISMARCK  433 

lier  territory  and  prestige.  Thus  it  came,  to  the  amaze- 
ment of  all  Europe,  that  these  two  powers,  which  had  so 
long  seemed  ready  to  fly  at  each  other's  throats,  took  the 
whole  question  into  their  joined  hands,  marched  side  by 
side  into  the  Danish  peninsula,  conquered  the  Danes,  and 
occupied  the  whole  Schleswig-Holstein  region.  But  not 
without  a  fearful  struggle.  The  Danes  fought  with  des- 
peration, and  military  history  shows  few  pages  as  heroic 
as  those  which  record  their  resistance  against  vastly 
superior  forces  at  Diippel  and  Alsen;  but,  as  a  result 
came  the  Treaty  of  Vienna,  in  1864,  and  by  this  Denmark 
gave  up  the  territory  so  long  disputed  into  the  hands  of 
Austria  and  Prussia. 

But  what  to  do  with  it?  Their  booty  was  embarrass- 
ing; the  sweet  reasonableness  which  had  led  them  into 
partnership  now  evaporated.  Austria  became  suspicious 
and  Bismarck  surly.  Whatever  either  suggested,  the 
other  opposed.  Austria  proposed  that  the  Prince  of 
Augustenburg  should  be  installed  as  Duke;  a  majority 
of  the  Schleswig-Holstein  people  longed  for  him;  Ger- 
many was  almost  unanimously  propitious  to  him;  even 
Prussia  was  largely  inclined  to  him  as  the  legitimate  sov- 
ereign— the  royal  family  generally  favoring  him,  the 
Crown  Prince  supporting  him,  and  even  King  William 
thinking  well  of  him.  Outside  of  the  two  powers  imme- 
diately concerned,  the  same  sentiment  prevailed:  Eng- 
land, France,  and  Eussia  looking  on  the  Augustenburger 
as  the  true  prince.  But  against  all  these  stood  Bismarck. 
He  had  tried  the  Augustenburg  pretender  and  found  him 
incapable  of  recognizing  the  real  issue, — wanting  in  fealty 
to  a  united  Germany.  One  more  princeling  in  the  Bund, 
nominally  independent  but  really  a  puppet  of  Austria,  he 
would  not  have.  As  to  the  Augustenburger 's  "  rights, " 
Bismarck  trumped  up  others,  apparently  quite  as  good — 
notably  sundry  claims  of  Oldenburg — and  at  his  behest 

court  lawyers  ground  out  various  weighty  opinions,  the 

28 


434  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

most  cogent  being  that  all  the  old  rights  and  claims  had 
been  superseded  by  the  recent  victories.  The  majority 
of  the  German  states,  acting  through  the  Federal  Council 
at  Frankfort,  tried  to  settle  the  matter;  but  Bismarck 
promptly  reminded  them  that  the  German  Confederation 
had  no  longer  any  right  to  meddle, — that  Prussia  and 
Austria  now  held  the  disputed  territory  by  right  of  con- 
quest. France  and  Great  Britain  also  sought  to  inter- 
fere ;  but  he  informed  them  in  diplomatic  language,  more 
or  less  civil,  that  the  matter  was  none  of  theirs. 

The  Augustenburg  Prince  himself  pressing  his  claims 
upon  Bismarck,  there  came  a  grim  sort  of  comedy.  The 
faithful  chronicler,  Busch,  gives  an  account  of  it  in  Bis- 
marck's own  words,  as  follows: 

"I  remember  an  interview  I  had  with  the  Augusten- 
burger  in  1864,  in  the  billiard  room  near  my  study,  which 
lasted  until  late  in  the  night.  First  I  called  him  'High- 
ness' and  was  altogether  specially  polite;  but,  when  I 
mentioned  Kiel  harbor,  which  we  wanted,  he  remarked 
that  that  might  mean  something  like  a  square  mile,  or  per- 
haps even  several  square  miles, — a  remark  to  which  I  wasr 
of  course,  obliged  to  assent ;  and,  when  he  also  refused  to 
listen  to  our  demands  regarding  the  army,  I  answered  in 
a  different  tone,  and  addressed  him  merely  as  'Prince/ 
Finally,  I  told  him  quite  coolly,  using  an  old  Low-German 
proverb,  that  we  'could  wring  the  necks  of  the  chickens 
we  had  hatched!'  " 

But  Bismarck  did  not  long  remain  in  this  negative 
phase :  gradually  he  became  positive.  He  was  determined 
that  the  duchies  should  not  form  one  more  satrapy  of 
Austria ;  that  Austria,  being  at  so  great  a  distance,  had 
virtually  no  interest  in  them;  that  Prussia,  adjoining 
them,  had  a  direct  practical  interest — in  their  territory 
as  adjacent  to  her  own,  in  the  harbor  of  Kiel  as  necessary 
to  her  proper  naval  development,  in  the  right  to  dig  a 
canal  connecting  her  dominions  on  the  North  Sea  with 


BISMARCK  435 

those  on  the  Baltic,  and  in  the  extension  of  her  railway 
system  northward ;  and  he  therefore  proposed  that  Aus- 
tria give  up  to  Prussia  virtually  all  rights  in  the  newly 
acquired  territory.  This  proposal  Austria,  after  first 
refusing  and  then  shuffling,  expressed  a  willingness  to 
consider,  but  insisted  on  compensation:  there  must  be 
restored  to  her  a  portion  of  those  Silesian  territories  torn 
away  from  her  a  hundred  years  before  by  Frederick  the 
Great.  To  this  Bismarck  would  not  listen;  he  refused 
to  yield  an  inch  of  German  territory  and  the  Great  Fred- 
erick's conquest  he  held  to  be  especially  sacred. 

War  between  the  two  great  German  powers  seemed 
likely  to  come  at  any  moment;  but,  Bismarck  being  not 
quite  ready,  there  came,  on  August  14,  1865,  a  tem- 
porary makeshift  known  as  the  Convention  of  Gastein. 
By  this  treaty  Prussia  took  Schleswig,  with  the  right  to 
buy  for  a  petty  sum  Austria's  share  of  Lauenburg,  also 
to  control  the  port  of  Kiel,  to  dig  a  ship  canal  connecting 
the  North  Sea  and  the  Baltic,  to  build  railways  through 
Holstein,  and  to  draw  the  duchies  into  the  Prussian  Cus- 
toms Union.  Austria's  share  was  Holstein,  now  to  be 
surrounded  by  Prussian  territory  and  permeated  by  Prus- 
sian railways.  All  this  was  recognized  throughout 
Europe  as  a  brilliant  diplomatic  victory  for  Bismarck. 
He  was  wont  to  boast  of  it  in  after  years  and  in  his  talks 
with  Busch  he  tells  the  story  as  follows:  "When  I  was 
negotiating  the  treaty  of  Gastein  with  Blome  (the  Aus- 
trian Envoy)  I  played  Quinze  for  the  last  time  in  my  life. 
I  gambled  recklessly,  so  that  the  others  were  astounded. 
But  I  knew  what  I  was  at.  Blome  had  heard  that  Quinze 
gave  the  best  opportunity  of  testing  a  man's  character, 
and  he  was  anxious  to  try  the  experiment  on  me.  I 
thought  to  myself,  I  '11  teach  him.  I  lost  a  few  hundred 
dollars,  for  which  I  might  well  have  claimed  reimburse- 
ment from  the  state  as  having  been  expended  on  His 
Majesty's  service;  but  I  got  around  Blome  in  that  way 


436  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

and  made  him  do  what  I  wanted.  He  took  me  to  be 
reckless,  and  yielded." 

To  indicate  Prussian  gratitude  for  this  exploit  King 
William  now  made  him  ' '  Count  Bismarck. ' '  * 

But  the  troubles  were  only  increased.  Bismarck's 
activity  became  greater  than  ever.  To  him,  and  indeed  to 
many  others,  it  was  evident  that  war  between  the  two 
allies  was  inevitable,  and  preparations  for  it  were  made 
on  both  sides — those  of  Prussia  being  much  the  more 
effective. 

With  Italy  he  now  brought  his  long-cherished  plan  to 
a  climax,  by  making  a  treaty  giving  her  Venice,  in  case 
within  three  months  she  should  assist  Prussia  in  a  war 
against  Austria.  Among  the  South  German  states,  not- 
ably in  Bavaria,  and  among  the  states  of  North  and  Mid- 
dle Germany,  notably  in  Hanover,  he  plied  the  old  ene- 
mies of  Prussia  with  arguments  to  show  that  it  would 
be  best  for  them  not  to  oppose  her  in  the  approaching 
struggle;  but  in  this  he  had  little  success — their  old  jeal- 
ousy of  Prussia  became  more  virulent  than  ever. 

Next  came  the  question  as  to  possible  interference  from 
Russia  and  France.  As  to  the  former,  Bismarck's  re- 
fusal to  unite  with  Austria  and  the  western  allies  against 
her  in  the  Crimean  War  of  1854-56,  his  cultivation  of 
close  social  and  political  relations  during  his  embassy 
at  St.  Petersburg  after  1859,  his  aid  given  to  Russia 
against  the  Polish  uprising  in  1863,  and  his  supposed 
willingness  to  stand  by  Russia  in  any  future  efforts  to 
break  the  Crimean  treaty  which  hampered  her  in  the 
Black  Sea, — all  these  removed  the  clanger  of  interference 
from  Prussia's  great  neighbor  on  the  east.  But  how 
about  the  great  power  on  the  west?    Napoleon  III,  Em- 

i  See  Busch's  Diary,  English  edition,  vol.  i,  p.  140.  Also,  Poschinger, 
Bismarck-Portefcuille,  vol.  i,  pp.  153  and  following.  For  the  details  at 
length,  given  admirably,  see  Matter,  Vie  de  Bismarck,  vol.  ii,  chaps,  vi 
and  vii. 


BISMARCK  437 

peror  of  the  French,  was  then  at  the  summit  of  his  fame. 
He  had  fought  out  successfully  the  Crimean  War  against 
Russia,  thus  gaining  the  good  will  of  Great  Britain ;  he 
had  aided  effectively  in  the  war  for  Italian  independence, 
thus  gaining  the  good  will  of  the  new  King  of  Italy;  he 
had  seated  a  Hapsburg  Archduke  on  the  throne  of  Mex- 
ico, thus  gaining  the  good  will  of  Austria;  he  had  held 
the  revolution  in  check  at  Rome,  thus  securing,  as  was 
supposed,  the  good  will  of  the  Pope ;  by  his  International 
Exposition,  in  1855,  he  had  made  Paris  the  capital  of 
Europe,  and  European  crowned  heads  and  statesmen  who 
had  snubbed  him  in  the  first  days  of  his  power  now 
rejoiced  to  be  his  guests  at  the  Tuileries,  and  with  these 
came  Bismarck.  Sundry  European  publicists  then  in 
vogue  declared  the  enthroned  nephew  greater  than  his 
uncle ;  Napoleonism  became  a  fashion  not  only  in  Europe 
but  in  the  United  States ;  and  the  most  absurdly  fulsome 
plea  for  it  ever  made  came  from  the  pen  of  an  American. 
The  French  Emperor  had  in  reality  passed  the  summit 
of  his  power.  Physical  weakness  had  diminished  his  in- 
tellectual strength ;  he  had  become  sluggish,  even  careless ; 
his  great  armies  since  the  wars  in  Italy  and  in  Mexico 
had  not  been  brought  up  to  their  earlier  strength.  The 
world  at  large  did  not  realize  this,  but  Bismarck  was  not 
long  in  discovering  and  acting  upon  it. 

The  great  question  now  was :  Will  this  supreme  poten- 
tate allow  Prussia  to  extend  her  territories?  Will  he  allow 
a  united  Germany,  on  the  borders  of  France,  and,  if  so, 
at  what  price?  He  had  permitted  various  states  of  Italy 
to  unite ;  indeed,  he  had  sent  his  armies  to  aid  them,  but 
had  exacted  in  return  the  cession  of  Nice  and  Savoy  from 
Cavour.  What  cession  of  territory  would  he  now  demand 
from  Bismarck?  This  question,  and  others  grouped  about 
it,  Bismarck  had  studied  in  his  own  way  for  ten  years — 
taking  pains  at  various  times  to  meet  the  French  Em- 
peror and  to  discuss  burning  questions  with  him.     Espe- 


438  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

cially  had  this  been  done  in  1862,  when  Bismarck  was 
content  to  await  for  a  time  the  position  of  Prime  Minister 
at  Berlin  and  to  be  sent  as  Ambassador  to  Paris,  in  order 
that  before  becoming  Prime  Minister  of  Prussia  he  might 
study  the  French  Emperor  face  to  face.  But  also  at 
other  times,  and  notably  in  October  of  1865,  he  had  made 
visits  to  Napoleon  III  at  Paris  and  Biarritz,  and,  in  long 
walks  and  talks,  with  that  frankness  which  so  often 
amazed  his  contemporaries,  discussed  the  relations  of 
France  to  his  projects,  avowing  to  the  Emperor  his  deter- 
mination to  work  for  German  unity,  for  the  supremacy 
of  Prussia  in  Germany,  and  for  the  expulsion  of  Aus- 
tria from  German  concerns.  This  amazing  openness, 
it  is  true,  had  led  the  French  Emperor  to  speak  of  him 
at  first  as  "not  serious";  but  gradually  Bismarck's 
frankness  invited  something  like  similar  conduct  on  the 
Emperor's  part,  his  dreams  of  the  future  were  now 
largely  revealed,  and  all  these  might  be  summed  up  in 
one  statement — France  must  extend  her  boundaries  to 
the  Rhine. 

Yet  in  his  efforts  to  this  end  he  showed  a  strange  lack 
of  activity:  the  Biarritz  interviews  seemed  to  throw  a 
spell  over  him.  Though  Bismarck  and  his  emissaries 
again  and  again  sought  to  know  what  the  French  Em- 
peror would  definitely  insist  upon,  all  answers  were  vague 
and  dilatory,  and  so  they  remained  until  Prussia's 
strength  was  fully  manifested.  Then  Napoleon  wrought 
desperately.  He  proposed  a  European  Peace  Confer- 
ence ;  but  it  was  too  late.  He  sought  to  take  Luxemburg 
from  the  King  of  the  Netherlands,  while  pretending  to 
be  his  protector;  to  annex  Belgium,  while  claiming  to  be 
its  best  friend;  to  obtain  large  parts  of  Bavaria  and  other 
South  German  States,  while  professing  willingness  to  aid 
them  against  the  encroachments  of  Prussia;  he  was  even 
so  imprudent  as  to  allow  his  ambassador,  Benedetti, 
to  put  some  of  his  schemes  on  paper  and  to  leave  them 


BISMARCK  439 

in  Bismarck's  hands.  These  movements  of  Napoleon 
Bismarck  generally  humored:  it  has  never  been  shown 
that  he  pledged  himself  to  anything,  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  he  again  and  again  encouraged  the  French 
Emperor  to  expect,  in  case  of  Prussia's  success,  splendid 
additions  to  France, — not,  indeed,  from  Prussian  terri- 
tory— on  that  point  his  refusal  was  always  frank  and 
final — but  from  the  domains  of  neighbors. 

But  Napoleon  plotted  not  merely  with  Bismarck  against 
Austria,  he  constantly  negotiated  with  Austrian  states- 
men against  Prussia — holding  out  to  them,  among  other 
lures,  the  restoration  of  Silesia.  In  any  case,  he  seemed 
to  command  the  situation  completely.  The  general  opin- 
ion in  France  was  that,  in  the  war  evidently  approaching, 
Austria  must  win.  The  present  writer,  being  at  that  time 
in  Europe,  found  on  all  sides,  not  only  in  France  but  in 
the  lesser  states  of  Germany,  the  belief  that  the  Austrian 
troops,  with  the  aid  of  the  German  states  which  dreaded 
Prussia,  could  not  fail  to  be  victorious.  Especially  was 
this  the  opinion  of  military  men  and  ecclesiastics.  Mil- 
itary men  believed  that  Austria  could  put  into  the  field 
at  least  six  hundred  thousand  soldiers,  and  these  of  the 
best,  with  officers  tried  thoroughly  in  the  Italian  War. 
Ecclesiastics  of  the  Roman  obedience  were  convinced  that 
the  war  could  have  but  one  end;  that  it  was  providen- 
tial; that  the  Almighty  could  not  permit  the  supremacy 
of  heresy  in  the  old  Empire  which  had  for  centuries  been 
the  child  of  the  Church ; — and  they  found  eloquent  advo- 
cates at  the  French  court,  chief  among  them  being  the 
Empress  Eugenie. 

The  French  Emperor's  policy,  under  all  the  conditions, 
real  and  supposed,  seemed  perfectly  indicated.  He  must, 
while  pretending  to  desire  peace  and  outwardly  advo- 
cating a  conference  to  prevent  war,  quietly  egg  on  both 
powers.  Though,  in  his  opinion,  Austria  was,  perhaps, 
likely  to  win,  Prussia  was  sure  to  make  a  good  fight ;  this. 


440  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

would  exhaust  both  parties,  and,  when  both  were  at  the 
last  gasp,  he  could  intervene  by  throwing  his  army  into 
the  arena  and  give  final  victory  to  that  government 
which  should  offer  most  to  France:  never  was  scheme 
more  promising. 

But  Bismarck's  most  vexatious  difficulties  were  at 
home.  The  feeling  of  Germany  at  large  was  bitterly 
against  him,  and  nowhere  more  so  than  in  the  royal  fam- 
ily of  Prussia.  The  Queen,  the  Crown  Prince — later  to 
be  known  as  the  Emperor  Frederick  III, — his  gifted  wife 
— later  to  be  known  as  the  Empress  Frederick, — with  the 
cliques  and  parties  grouped  about  them,  steadily  opposed 
him,  and,  worst  of  all,  they  at  times  influenced  the  King 
against  him:  the  letters  which  passed  at  that  time  show 
an  almost  invincible  reluctance  on  the  part  of  King  Wil- 
liam to  be  dragged  into  war  with  his  brother  monarch 
of  Austria, — a  reluctance  which  on  at  least  one  occasion 
showed  itself  in  an  outburst  of  passion  and  floods  of 
tears  from  the  King  and  in  a  nervous  crisis  of  his  great 
minister.  In  Bismarck's  memoirs  and  private  letters, 
we  constantly  find  evidence  that  overcoming  the  reluc- 
tance of  the  King  was  the  task  which  most  severely  tried 
him.1 

Trying  beyond  measure  also  was  the  Prussian  Parlia- 
ment. Its  House  of  Commons  was  steadily  arrayed 
against  him,  and  some  of  its  men  of  mark,  utterly  fanat- 
ical, were  as  much  in  Bismarck's  way  as  were  Wendell 
Phillips  and  men  like  him  in  the  way  of  Lincoln  during 
our  Civil  War.  Eloquent  parliamentary  orators  de- 
nounced Bismarck's  policy  unsparingly,  and,  as  the  lower 
House  by  enormous  majorities  steadily  refused  to  vote 

i  The  accounts  given  both  by  Bismarck  and  by  Busch  of  theatrical  out- 
breaks between  King  William  and  his  great  minister,  both  in  regard  to 
bringing  on  the  war  and  as  to  the  proper  line  of  conduct  after  the  victory, 
have  been  shown  by  recent  investigations  to  be  exaggerated;  but  that  the 
struggle  between  them  was  in  each  case  long  and  severe  and  at  times 
accompanied  by  nervous  crises  and  tears  is  amply  proven. 


BISMARCK  441 

supplies,  he  again  and  again  sent  them  home  and  levied 
taxes  unauthorized  by  law,  and,  as  was  claimed,  in  defi- 
ance of  the  Constitution.1 

And  fanaticism  even  more  frantic  now  beset  him.  On 
the  7th  of  May,  1866,  while  walking  along  the  Unter  den 
Linden,  at  Berlin,  he  was  attacked  by  a  stepson  of  Carl 
Blind,  the  revolutionist,  a  young  Jew  named  Cohen,  who 
fired  upon  him  at  close  quarters  with  a  revolver.  Bis- 
marck was  unarmed:  he  had,  at  times,  so  far  yielded  to 
the  expostulations  of  his  friends  as  to  carry  a  pistol, 
but  on  that  day  he  had  left  it  at  home  and  had  not 
even  a  walking-stick.  Yet  the  indomitable  Bismarck 
spirit  asserted  itself:  rushing  upon  his  assailant,  he 
overpowered  him,  but  not  until  five  shots  had  been  fired 
at  close  quarters,  one  of  them  drawing  blood  and  sev- 
eral of  them  burning  his  clothing.  Though  he  fully  be- 
lieved himself  mortally  wounded,  he  still  showed  his  in- 
vincible self-possession,  and  handed  the  assassin  over  to 
the  police.  He  then  quietly  joined  his  family  and  guests 
at  dinner,  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  None  of  these 
things  shook  his  purpose :  he  pressed  on,  and  now  Austria, 
persistently  and  skillfully  provoked  by  him,  carried  a 
motion,  in  the  Federal  Diet  at  Frankfort,  against  Prus- 
sia— Austria  and  the  greater  states  of  the  German  con- 
federation being  on  one  side  and  Prussia  with  sundry 
minor  states  on  the  other.  At  this  Bismarck  tore  Prus- 
sia away  from  the  confederation,  and  war  began  at  once 
on  a  prodigious  scale.  Now  were  seen  the  results  of  that 
increase  and  reorganization  of  the  army  which  during 
four  years  the  courage  of  Bismarck  had  made  possible, 
despite  the  Parliament.  Thanks  to  Bismarck,  Moltke, 
and  Boon,  four  great  Prussian  armies  were  at  once  put 
into  the  field.     The  Kingdom  of  Hanover,  not  yielding 

i  For  interesting  details  of  the  reformation  of  the  army  and  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  Prussian  Parliament,  see  Matter,  Vie  de  Bismarck.  For  the 
effect  of  the  struggle  on  Bismarck  personally,  see  Keudell. 


442  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

immediately,  was  subjugated  within  a  week,  her  army 
overcome,  and  her  King  exiled ;  Saxony  was  immediately 
overrun  and  her  King  forced  to  flee  with  his  army  over 
the  border  into  Austria ;  Hesse,  so  long  malevolent,  was 
overwhelmed  in  like  manner,  her  troops  beaten,  and  her 
Elector  made  prisoner ;  Nassau  was  taken  and  her  Duke 
sent  into  exile;  the  free  city  of  Frankfort-on-Main, 
despite  its  widespread  political  and  financial  influence, 
was  reduced  to  complete  submission;  and  the  greater 
divisions  south  of  the  Main,  like  Bavaria  and  Wiirtem- 
berg,  were  at  once  brought  to  a  frame  of  mind  very 
moderate  and  even  very  humble.  Meanwhile,  three  great 
armies  were  pushed  against  Austria,  steadily  and  vic- 
toriously, until  finally,  at  Sadowa,  they  were  united  and 
gained  one  of  the  greatest  victories  in  history.  Four 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  combatants  were  engaged: 
so  far  as  numbers  were  concerned,  it  was  the  greatest 
battle  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  one  of  the  decisive 
battles  of  all  time. 

What  use  should  be  made  of  the  victory1?  The  course 
proposed  by  King  William  and  applauded  by  all  the  mil- 
itary leaders  and  by  the  vast  majority  of  civil  leaders 
was  to  wrest  from  Austria  large  tracts  of  territory,  thus 
perfecting  the  Prussian  frontier,  and  to  insist  on  a  great 
indemnity,  thus  strengthening  the  Prussian  finances. 
The  King,  the  chief  commanders,  the  generals,  the  troops, 
were  also  determined  that  the  army  should  march  on 
Vienna.  It  lay  fully  open  to  the  victors  and  to  occupy 
it  would  exhibit  to  the  world  the  greatest  triumph  since 
the  occupation  of  Paris  by  the  allies  half  a  century  be- 
fore. Thus  would  the  humiliation  of  Prussia  at  Olmiitz 
and  the  long  series  of  insults  at  Frankfort  be  atoned  for. 
The  German  nation  demanded  it, — even  Bismarck's  wife 
and  children  urged  it, — the  whole  world  expected  it. 

But  now,  as  at  other  times,  it  was  Bismarck  against 
his  country  and  against  the  world.     Fearless,  uncom- 


BISMARCK  443 

promising,  he  opposed  all  these  measures.  He  saw  that 
the  war  had  strengthened  Prussian  territory  by  such 
vast  additions  from  the  northern  and  middle  states  that 
Austria  could  never  again  claim  supremacy  in  Germany ; 
but  he  also  saw  looming  up  in  the  immediate  future  some- 
thing which  his  opponents  did  not  see — a  great  war 
with  France.  He  foresaw  that  France,  disappointed, 
duped,  enraged,  all  her  calculations  brought  to  naught, 
would  never,  without  a  savage  struggle,  permit  the  estab- 
lishment on  her  boundaries  of  a  united  Germany.  In 
such  a  war  he  saw  that  it  was  of  infinite  importance  that 
Austria  should  not  be  Prussia's  implacable  enemy;  that 
Prussia's  true  policy  was  not  to  arouse  unappeasable 
hatred  in  the  minds  of  the  vanquished  by  seizing  Aus- 
trian territory,  by  burdening  the  Austrian  people  with 
a  crushing  indemnity,  or  by  occupying  their  capital.  He 
saw  that  the  true  policy  was  to  be  content  with  the  main 
result  of  the  war  and  to  avoid  everything  like  revenge, 
punishment,  or  insult.  His  wisdom  was  that  of  the  emi- 
nent American  politician  who  said,  "Never  make  your 
enemy  so  angry  that  he  cannot  get  over  it. ' '  There  came 
a  long  struggle,  in  which  the  Emperor  and  his  Minister 
were  wrought  up  to  the  utmost,  and  to  carry  his  policy 
Bismarck  was  at  last  obliged  to  make  the  threat  of  resign- 
ing, always  so  powerful  with  King  William,  and  to  ask 
simply  for  an  officer's  commission  in  the  army  to  serve 
actively  against  the  enemy.  Thus  it  was  that,  at  fearful 
odds,  with  no  supporters  save  the  Crown  Prince — never 
a  powerful  advocate  with  his  father — Bismarck  was  suc- 
cessful. The  King  most  reluctantly  decided  in  his  favor ; 
the  policy  of  moderation  prevailed ;  the  army  was  turned 
away  from  Vienna;  the  preliminaries  of  peace  were 
speedily  agreed  upon  at  Nikolsburg,  to  be  ratified  after- 
ward at  the  Treaty  of  Prague. 

This  policy  of  Bismarck  toward  Austria  is  the  more 
striking  when  compared  with  his  course  toward  the  de- 


U±  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

feated  states  of  Western  Germany.  These  states — Han- 
over, Hesse-Cassel,  Nassau,  the  free  city  of  Frankfort — 
had  given  Prussia  no  such  cause  for  war  as  had  Austria. 
They  had  but  obeyed  the  parliament  of  the  Confederation 
and  followed  Austria  into  the  war,  but  their  area  was  of 
priceless  value  to  Prussia  as  giving  her  territorial  unity 
and  rounding  out  her  frontiers;  and  heedless  of  their 
protest  they  were  now — and  with  them  not  only  Schleswig 
and  Lauenburg,  but  Holstein — incorporated  fully  into 
the  Prussian  state.  Such  high-handed  use  of  the  for- 
tunes of  war  in  modern  Europe  only  Napoleon  had  ven- 
tured; but  so  wisely  were  its  victims  chosen  that  the 
deed  was  to  have  a  permanence  unknown  to  the  Na- 
poleonic creations. 

By  these  amazing  achievements  the  whole  world  was 
dazed.  In  seven  weeks  Prussia  had  fought  successfully 
through  one  of  the  greatest  wars  in  history  and  had  in- 
creased her  domain  by  one-fourth,  and  her  population  by 
four  and  one-half  millions,  bringing  it  up  to  twenty-three 
millions:  thus  rounding  out  the  Prussian  dominion  in  a 
way  better  and  larger  than  the  greatest  of  previous  states- 
men had  dared  dream — giving  her  a  great  seaport,  the 
possibility  of  connecting  the  North  Sea  with  the  Baltic, 
and  a  position  among  the  maritime  powers  of  the  world. 
Best  of  all,  she  had  driven  Austria  out  of  Germany,  had 
made  Prussia  the  directing  state  in  a  new  German  nation 
numbering  nearly  thirty  millions,  and  had  brought  under 
Prussian  command  an  army  of  eight  hundred  thousand 
men. 


m 

GREAT  events  followed  rapidly:  " Nothing  succeeds 
like  success."  From  being  the  most  hated  and  ab- 
horred man  in  Germany,  and,  indeed,  in  Europe,  Bis- 
marck had  become  the  most  popular.  Personally  he  had 
long  since  become  popular  among  most  of  his  colleagues. 
Easy  of  access,  whether  to  rich  or  poor;  always  keeping 
open  house ;  original,  quaint,  shrewd,  witty,  jovial,  fertile 
in  illustrative  anecdote,  skilled  in  mimicry,  he  was  sure, 
despite  his  occasional  brutalities,  to  win  a  great  follow- 
ing ;  and  he  was  also  sure  to  compel  respect  by  his  cour- 
age, clearness  of  vision,  power  of  shaping  events  and 
controlling  men.  His  success  made  him  the  idol  of  the 
nation.  The  elections  gave  him  what  he  had  not  before 
had — a  majority  in  the  Prussian  Parliament:  the  Prus- 
sian people  were  ready  to  give  him  anything.  Now  came 
another  stroke  of  wisdom.  Powerful  as  he  was — able  to 
bid  defiance  to  his  parliamentary  enemies  and  even  to 
crush  them — he  simply  asked  for  a  law  of  indemnity  for 
his  past  defiance  of  Parliament.  This  was  at  once  passed, 
and  fifty  millions  of  Prussian  dollars  were  also  voted 
toward  further  military  operations,  with  a  million  and  a 
half  to  the  leaders  in  the  great  triumph:  of  this  the  lion's 
share  fell  to  Bismarck,  and  with  it  was  purchased  the 
Pomeranian  estate  of  Varzin,  so  closely  associated  with 
his  later  life. 

Now  was  established  the  North  German  Confederation, 
embracing  all  the  German  states  from  the  North  Sea  to 
the  Main.  Its  Parliament  consisted  of  an  upper  council, 
representing  the  various  political  divisions  of  North  Ger- 
many, and  a  lower  house,  elected  by  universal  suffrage, 
representing  the  people  at  large.     Over  the  confedera- 

445 


446  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

tion,  as  its  president,  was  the  Prussian  King,  with  great 
powers  of  military  control,  but  without  formal  power  of 
initiating  laws  or  vetoing  them. 

In  all  this  system,  presented  by  Bismarck  and  agreed 
to  by  the  German  states,  one  sees  a  striking  departure 
from  his  earlier  ideas.  His  old  hatred  of  parliamentary 
institutions,  of  the  admission  of  the  people  to  power, 
and  of  restrictions  upon  the  God-given  rule  of  the  mon- 
arch, is  gone,  and  in  place  of  it  has  come  a  recogni- 
tion of  ideas  formerly  abhorrent  to  him.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  a  strong  influence  was  exerted  upon  him 
in  this  development  by  the  American  Minister  at  Berlin 
during  that  period,  George  Bancroft.  Bismarck  had 
shown,  from  his  Gottingen  days,  a  liking  for  the  better 
sort  of  Americans,  and  Bancroft  was  in  strong  sympathy 
with  him.  The  dispatches  of  the  American  Plenipoten- 
tiary at  that  period  abound  in  references  not  only  to  the 
military  but  to  the  constitutional  evolution  of  the  new 
Germany:  he  takes  pains  to  show  to  the  Washington 
authorities  various  resemblances  between  the  North  Ger- 
man constitution  and  our  own.  Historian,  statesman, 
diplomat  in  the  best  sense,  as  Bancroft  was,  and  at  the 
same  time  an  intense  lover  of  democratic  government — 
with  a  personality  which  impressed  deeply  all  who  knew 
him,  and  especially  the  King — his  reasonings  undoubt- 
edly had  much  to  do  with  the  development  of  Bismarck's 
opinions, — especially  regarding  a  federative  government, 
with  a  broad  democratic  representation.  So  marked  was 
this  development  that  many  of  Bismarck's  old  reaction- 
ary associates  never  forgave  him.  The  extreme  mo- 
narchical and  aristocratic  Kreuz-Zeitung,  to  which  he 
had  formerly  been  a  frequent  contributor,  and  with  whose 
editor  he  had  been  on  terms  of  intimate  friendship,  now 
turned  bitterly  against  him  and  persistently  waged  war 
on  him.1 

1  As   to   the   strong   impression   made   by   Bancroft,   the   present   writer, 


BISMARCK  447 

Interesting  also  is  it  to  an  American  that  Bismarck 
broke  from  his  old  reactionary  friends,  not  only  on  Ger- 
man, but  on  American  affairs.  While  Germany  was  in 
strong  and  effective  sympathy  with  the  American  Union 
during  our  Civil  War,  the  Prussian  reactionaries  were 
bitterly  against  us:  they  longed  for  the  downfall  and 
disgrace  of  American  republicanism ;  they  gloried  in  the 
anti- American  utterances  of  Gladstone  and  Carlyle ;  they 
besought  the  King  to  recognize  the  Southern  Confeder- 
acy;— but  all  this  Bismarck  brought  to  naught, — he  felt 
that  no  alliance  between  Germany  and  a  nation  based  on 
slavery  was  possible.1 

The  four  years  following  the  Seven  Weeks'  War  did 
much  to  consolidate  the  North  German  Confederation, 
and  in  this  work  Bismarck  won  victories  no  less  rapid 
and  decisive  than  those  gained  on  the  battlefields  by 
Moltke  and  Roon.  Though  the  French  Emperor  had 
been  able  by  vague  threats  to  force  into  the  Treaty  of 
Prague  a  clause  declaring  the  South  German  states — Ba- 
varia, Wiirtemberg,  and  the  rest — completely  independ- 
ent of  the  North  German  Confederation,  he  had  again 

succeeding  him  after  an  interval  of  a  few  years,  had  abundant  testimony 
from  diplomatic  colleagues  and  from  leaders  in  German  politics.  Curiou3 
■was  it  that  the  Prussian  King,  who  had  now  become  the  Emperor  William, 
until  the  end  of  his  life,  when  he  met  the  American  minister,  usually 
asked,  "How  goes  it  with  your  predecessor?"  (Wie  geht  es  mit  Ihrem 
Vorganger?) — always  meaning  by  the  "predecessor"  Bancroft.  As  to 
Bismarck's  feeling  toward  Bancroft  it  is  noteworthy  that,  among  the 
portraits  of  European  sovereigns  at  Friedrichsruh,  he  placed  the  por- 
traits of  Bancroft  and  General  Grant,  with  the  busts  of  Washington  and 
Hamilton.  See  Busch,  Diary  (English  edition),  vol.  iii,  p.  351.  As  to 
Bismarck's  efforts  to  have  Bancroft  retained  in  Berlin,  see  a  letter  of  his 
in  Motley's  Correspondence ;  also  Lowe,  Bismarck's  Table  Talk,  p.  149. 
For  special  evidences  of  Bismarck's  good  will,  see  Life  and  Letters  of 
George  Bancroft,  vol.  ii,  pp.  246,  247,  254,  and  elsewhere. 

1  On  the  refusal  of  Bismarck  to  recognize  the  American  Confederate 
States,  see  Lowe,  as  above,  p.  147.  On  Bismarck's  sympathy  with  the 
Confederate  leaders  as  an  individual,  but  his  opposition  to  them  as  a 
statesman,  see  his  conversation  with  Carl  Schurz,  given  in  Schurz's  Mem- 
oirs, vol.  ii. 


448  SEVEN  GEEAT  STATESMEN 

been  duped;  for  just  before  the  treaty  was  signed  Bis- 
marck had  secured  special  treaties  with  these  same  South 
German  states,  pledging  them,  in  case  of  war  with  France, 
to  act  with  the  North  German  Confederation.  He  now 
pushed  on  measures  binding  these  states  even  more  firmly 
to  the  confederation,  and  when  any  state,  yielding  to  the 
old  anti-Prussian  jealousy,  made  trouble,  he  brought  pow- 
erful weapons  from  his  armory :  especially  effective  were 
his  threats  of  exclusion  from  the  Customs  Union,  which 
meant  financial  ruin  to  the  excluded  states.  This  weapon 
he  brandished  at  times  with  great  effect  over  the  South 
German  states  outside  the  confederation:  as  to  Bavaria, 
deep  as  was  the  House  of  Wittelsbach's  jealousy  of  the 
House  of  Hohenzollern,  bitter  as  were  the  Bavarian  ultra- 
montanes  against  Prussia  as  a  Protestant  power,  and 
ingrained  as  was  the  dislike  of  her  people  for  everything 
Prussian,  they  could  not  but  remember  that  exclusion 
from  the  Customs  Union  meant  ruin  to  their  brewers. 
Then,  too,  Bismarck  used  more  subtle  weapons:  when 
Bavaria  and  Hesse  showed  signs  of  a  liking  for  their  old 
connection  with  France,  he  quietly  revealed  to  the  Ba- 
varian and  Hessian  rulers  and  statesmen  the  fact  that 
the  French  Emperor  was  ready  to  cede  almost  anything 
to  Prussia,  provided  Prussia  would  allow  him  to  swallow 
sundry  choice  morsels  of  Bavarian  and  Hessian  territory. 
The  old  reactionary  King  of  Hanover,  for  whom,  in  spite 
of  much  opposition  in  Parliament,  Bismarck  had  secured 
an  indemnity  of  sixteen  millions  of  Prussian  dollars, 
began  a  most  determined  opposition,  maintaining  a  Han- 
overian legion  and  employing  journalists  to  attack  Prus- 
sia in  every  point  thought  vulnerable.  At  him  Bismarck 
struck  a  fatal  blow  by  sequestrating  the  sixteen  millions 
and  using  it  largely,  as  he  said,  "in  following  these  rep- 
tiles to  their  holes";  hence  the  "reptile  fund"  for  sub- 
sidizing journalists,  which  played  a  notable  but  not 
always  a  creditable  part  in  the  ensuing  struggles.    Yet 


BISMARCK  449 

Bismarck's  ability  to  wait  was  as  striking  as  his  ability 
to  labor.  Many  perfervid  patriots  made  the  strange 
complaint  that  he  was  not  daring  enough;  that  he  did  not 
push  and  pull  the  South  German  states,  and  especially 
Bavaria  and  TTurtemberg,  into  the  confederation  at  once. 
But  all  such  efforts  he  discouraged:  he  wished  the  en- 
trance of  these  states  into  the  union  to  result  from  the 
deep  convictions  of  the  princes  and  peoples  themselves. 
Our  own  American  Civil  War,  which  had  just  ended,  and 
our  wretched  reconstruction  period,  with  its  hatreds,  sus- 
picions, and  jealousies  between  South  and  North,  and  its 
scandals  which  echoed  throughout  the  world,  evidently 
taught  him  to  hasten  slowly;  he  realized,  with  Bishop  But- 
ler, that  there  may  be  "a  possible  insanity  of  states," 
and  that  for  such  a  disease  time  affords  the  best  cure. 
Even  when  the  state  of  Baden  then  sought  entrance,  he 
refused  her  and  bade  her  wait:  he  thought  it  not  best 
to  give  a  new  cause  of  jealousy  to  France  and  he  also 
wished  the  sentiment  of  nationality  to  mature.  To  those 
who  upbraided  him  for  this  he  used,  as  he  was  so  fond 
of  doing,  a  homely  peasant  proverb,  saying,  "To  take 
Baden  into  the  confederation  from  the  German  states 
outside,  would  be  like  skimming  the  cream  from  milk; 
the  rest  will  sour  all  the  more  quickly. ' ' ' 

The  labors  of  the  Chancellor  in  consolidating  the  new 

i  It  was  one  of  these  peasant  proverbs  with  which  he  silenced  the 
Augustenburg  pretender.  The  present  writer  once  heard  another  of  them 
from  Bismarck's  lips.  Walking  in  his  garden  and  discussing  German 
and  American  financial  policy,  the  question  came  up  as  to  sundry  former 
finance  ministers  of  Prussia,  and  of  these  he  presently  said,  "I  trusted 
them  at  first,  but  I  soon  found,  as  our  peasants  say  of  those  who  pre- 
tend to  their  neighbors  that  they  are  to  have  a  good  dinner,  that  they 
had  nothing  but  water  in  their  pots,  after  all." 

Gustav  Schmoller,  in  his  very  remarkable  Vier  Briefe  uber  Bismarcks 
socialpolilische  und  volJcswirtschaftliche  Stellung  und  Bedeutung,  refers 
very  thoughtfully  to  this  use  of  peasant  wisdom  by  Bismarck.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  great  Chancellor  drew  so  fully  from  no  other  sources  save 
from  Goethe,  Shakespeare,  and  the  pithy  Latin  of  black-letter  lawyers. 
29 


450  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Federation  became  Titanic.  Separate  treaties  had  to  be 
made  with  each  of  the  states  embraced  in  it,  each  treaty 
the  result  of  a  struggle  between  him  and  the  local  states- 
men concerned.  Night  and  day  he  was  forced  to  grapple 
with  questions  of  capital  importance  in  each  of  three 
great  parliamentary  bodies — the  Diet  of  the  Confedera- 
tion, the  Prussian  Diet,  and  the  Customs  Parliament — 
each  requiring  contests  or  compromises  with  leaders, 
cliques,  or  parties :  complicated  diplomatic  questions  beset 
him  in  every  part  of  the  world ;  but  the  thoughts  deepest 
in  his  mind  turned  toward  France.  Napoleon  III  was  not 
allowed  by  the  French  nation  to  forget  the  glories  of  the 
First  Empire.  If  the  sway  of  France  could  not  be  ex- 
tended throughout  the  valley  of  the  Ehine,  it  might  at 
least  prevail  over  portions  of  Southern  Germany,  Bel- 
gium, and  the  Netherlands.  But  the  French  Emperor  had 
been  dreamy  and  inconclusive.  Again  and  again  at  va- 
rious conferences  Bismarck  had  endeavored  to  secure 
from  him  something  definite,  but  in  vain.  The  Emperor's 
theory  had  been  that  definite  proposals  from  France 
could  be  better  made  after  Austria,  Prussia,  and  the 
other  German  states  had  been  depleted  and  discouraged 
by  a  long  civil  war ;  but  the  victories  of  Prussia,  sudden 
and  vast,  with  the  establishment  of  a  German  confedera- 
tion on  the  French  border,  had  changed  the  whole  face  of 
things.  He  now  became  urgent,  and  even  before  the 
preliminaries  of  peace  were  signed,  after  the  Seven 
Weeks'  "War,  his  ambassador,  Benedetti,  had  appeared 
in  the  Prussian  camp  pressing  the  claims  of  France. 

But  Bismarck  was  not  now  so  anxious  as  formerly,  and 
the  French  ambassador  was  putoffwith  the  statement  that 
nothing  could  be  done  until  the  terms  of  peace  with  Aus- 
tria had  been  settled.  Shortly  afterward,  Benedetti  ap- 
peared again,  and  this  time  with  virtual  threats — noth- 
ing less  than  declarations  that  unless  Prussia  made  large 
concessions  to  France  Napoleon  must  declare  war;  but 


BISMARCK  451 

this  Bismarck  resented  so  effectively  that  the  French 
government  softened  Benedetti's  declaration,  saying  that 
it  had  been  extorted  from  Napoleon  during  his  illness. 
The  effort  was  constantly  renewed:  Benedetti  whimper- 
ing that,  unless  some  concessions  of  German  territory 
were  made  to  France,  popular  resentment  would  endan- 
ger the  Bonaparte  dynasty,  and  then  followed  various 
definite  proposals  by  him  for  pacifying  French  feeling 
at  the  expense  of  Germany,  Belgium,  and  the  Nether- 
lands. The  condition  of  the  Bonaparte  dynasty  was 
certainly  critical.  The  collapse  of  the  French  expedi- 
tion to  Mexico,  with  the  execution  of  the  Emperor  Maxi- 
milian, whom  Napoleon  had  placed  on  the  Mexican 
throne,  strong  reminders  of  the  Monroe  doctrine  from 
Secretary  Seward,  with  the  reunited  American  republic 
at  his  back,  the  increasing  demands  of  the  French  rad- 
icals, the  evident  failure  of  the  new  liberal  order  of 
things  which  the  French  Emperor  had  conceded  in  his 
desperation,  all  made  it  necessary  to  secure  some  advan- 
tage which  should  propitiate  the  French  mob.  Moreover 
there  was  on  the  part  of  Napoleon  III  a  personal  feeling : 
it  had  dawned  upon  him  that  he  had  been  outwitted  by 
Bismarck, — that  the  man  whom  he  had  pronounced  "not 
serious"  had  proved  to  be  his  master. 

New  and  more  splendid  shows  were  now  tried:  the 
brilliant  Paris  exposition  of  1867,  with  its  visits  of 
crowned  heads  and  statesmen,  among  them  King  Wil- 
liam and  Bismarck, — the  meeting  of  Napoleon  with  the 
Austrian  Emperor  at  Salzburg,  and  with  various  minor 
German  monarchs  on  the  way, — every  sort  of  venture  to 
deceive  or  appease  France;  but  still  the  opposition  in 
the  French  Chambers,  and  especially  Thiers,  the  most 
skillful  of  all  French  architects  of  ruin,  were  denouncing 
the  shortcomings  of  the  French  Empire  and  prophesying 
its  decline.  These  enemies  were  careful  to  point  out  that 
the  French  Emperor  ought  never  to  have  allowed  on  its 


452  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

borders  a  united  Italy  or  a  united  Germany;  that  for- 
merly Cavour  and  now  Bismarck  had  duped  him.  Still 
he  resisted  the  pressure  for  war.  When  his  efforts  to 
secure  Mainz  and  portions  of  Luxemburg,  Bavaria,  and 
Belgium  had  evidently  failed,  he  still  pressed  for  some 
concession  with  which  he  might  oppose  the  mob  opinion 
of  Paris  and  the  distrust  of  France.  War  he  did  not 
want;  he  was  prematurely  old,  troubled  with  painful 
diseases  and  infirmities, — his  one  personal  ambition  was 
to  finish  his  Life  of  Caesar;  he  longed  for  peace. 

But  the  opposing  powers  in  France  were  far  too  strong 
for  him.  The  mob  mania  for  war,  the  ambitions  of 
generals,  the  intrigues  of  priests,  all  goaded  him  on. 
To  abase  the  Protestant  supremacy  of  Germany,  to  re- 
store by  a  new  war  the  old  order  of  things  in  Italy, — 
this  had  become,  with  the  Vatican  and  its  supporters 
throughout  Europe,  a  passion;  and  unfortunately  this 
ecclesiastical  effort  had  the  most  efficient  of  political 
agents,  the  former  Countess  of  Teba, — granddaughter 
of  the  Scotch  wine  merchant  Kirkpatrick, — now  the  Em- 
press Eugenie.  Her  Spanish  characteristics  having 
been  developed  by  nuns  and  confessors  and  Jesuit 
preachers,  she  became  the  devoted  agent  of  the  hierarchy, 
and  by  expostulation,  by  ridicule,  and  even  by  menace 
she  aided  to  drive  her  husband  into  war.  She  and  the 
people  about  her  watched  most  eagerly  for  a  pretext, — 
as  eagerly,  indeed,  as  did  Bismarck, — and  at  last  it  came 
— full  orbed.  The  Spanish  government,  after  the  exile 
of  the  wretched  Queen  Isabella,  was  seeking  a  king; 
various  candidates  were  approached  in  vain ;  but,  at  last, 
aided  by  the  quiet  efforts  of  Bismarck,  unknown  to  King 
William,  there  was  suggested  a  princeling  of  the  family 
of  Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.  His  name  was  received 
in  Spain  with  favor.  He  was  a  Catholic;  his  relation- 
ship to  the  Prussian  monarch  was  very  distant, — in 
fact,  he  was  much  more  nearly  related  by  blood  to  Napo- 


BISMARCK  453 

leon  III, — but  lie  had  the  prestige  of  the  Hohenzollern 
name ;  and  the  Spanish  leaders,  in  their  despair,  eagerly 
caught  at  the  prospect  of  so  promising  a  ruler,  called 
him,  and,  after  many  hesitations  and  even  refusals,  he 
accepted.1 

No  sooner  had  the  news  of  this  offer  of  the  Spanish 
throne  been  made  public  than  the  Parisian  press  attacked 
the  French  Emperor  for  allowing  it,  and  soon  there  was 
a  storm.  It  was  insisted  that  Bismarck,  having  erected 
a  united  Germany  on  the  eastern  border,  was  now  about 
to  create  a  Hohenzollern  satrapy  on  the  southern  bor- 
der. The  Duke  de  Gramont,  French  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  a  showy  incapable,  soon  joined  the  mob  and 
ordered  Benedetti,  the  French  Ambassador  at  the  Prus- 
sian court,  to  see  King  William,  who  was  quietly  taking 
the  waters  at  Ems,  and  obtain  from  him  assurances  sat- 
isfactory to  France.  These  assurances  were,  first,  that 
the  young  Prince  should  cancel  his  acceptance  of  the 
Spanish  throne.  The  aged  King,  shrewd  but  kindly, 
while  insisting  that  the  whole  matter  was  a  family  and 
not  a  state  affair,  showed  himself  quite  willing  that  the 
Prince  should  withdraw,  so  willing,  indeed,  as  to  disgust 
Bismarck,  and  to  suggest  ideas  which  led  him  to  think 
of  tendering  his  resignation.     Some  days  elapsed  before 

i  Down  to  a  recent  period  the  general  statement  by  Prussian  writers 
has  been  that  Bismarck  had  nothing  to  do  originally  with  the  Hohenzollern 
candidacy:  even  so  great  an  historian  as  Von  Sybel  committed  himself 
to  this  view,  but  the  revelations  made  by  Busch  and  by  Prince  Charles 
of  Roumania  in  their  respective  memoirs  make  it  certain  that  Bismarck 
was  among  the  first  to  urge  the  candidacy  of  the  Prince,  and  that  he  sent 
agents  to  Spain  to  press  the  matter;  it  is  equally  clear  that  King  William 
did  not  during  its  first  stages  have  any  adequate  knowledge  of  his 
Chancellor's  action  in  the  premises.  As  a  member  of  the  royal  house 
and  as  a  Prussian  officer,  the  Prince  had  sought  and  obtained  the  reluctant 
consent  of  the  King  after  the  offer  of  the  throne  had  been  made,  but  in 
the  intrigues  beforehand  the  King  certainly  had  no  share.  See,  especially, 
Reminiscences  of  the  King  of  Roumania,  Tauchnitz  edition,  edited  by 
Whitman,  pp.  100  and  following;  also  the  revelations  regarding  Lothar 
Bucher's  secret  mission  to  Spain,  in  Busch's  Reminiscences. 


454  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

the  Holienzollern  Prince  could  be  found,  for  the  family 
castle  was  in  a  distant  part  of  Germany  and  the  Prince 
himself  absent  from  home.  This  gave  a  great  chance  to 
French  demagoguery :  the  sensational  press,  the  mob  ora- 
tors, the  partisans  in  the  legislative  body,  vied  with  each 
other  in  denouncing  this  wrong  to  France,  but  finally  the 
communication  from  the  Prussian  Kiug  took  effect,  and 
the  French  authorities  speedily  received  from  the  Span- 
ish government  a  notice  that  the  Prince  had  canceled 
his  acceptance. 

King  William,  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  the  young 
Prince,  and  the  world  at  large  took  it  for  granted  that 
this  ended  the  matter.  Bismarck  seemed  to  lose  the 
battle.  From  the  beginning  King  William  and  the  Holien- 
zollern Princes  had  disliked  the  whole  plan,  all  of  them 
fearing  complications,  and  the  aged  King's  first  wish 
was  for  peace.  Bismarck  had  been  beaten  in  the  matter 
again  and  again.  Again  and  again  he  had  sent  his  most 
trusty  confidants  from  the  foreign  office  to  Madrid  and 
summoned  most  capable  Spanish  agents  to  Berlin,  and 
only  after  three  distinct  struggles  had  he  finally  tri- 
umphed over  the  scruples  of  King  and  Princes.  His  main 
arguments  to  them  were  based  on  the  honor  done  to  the 
Hohenzollern  name,  on  the  military  prestige  and  com- 
mercial advantage  to  be  derived  by  Germany  from  a 
friendly  monarch  at  Madrid,  and  on  the  desirability  of 
ending  anarchy  in  the  Spanish  peninsula.  But  behind  all 
these  was  an  argument  which  Bismarck  avowed  to  none 
save  himself,  and  least  of  all  to  the  King  or  the  Princes. 
Ever  since  the  Prussian  victory  over  Austria  he  had 
seen  that  a  war  with  France  was  inevitable.  The  only 
question  with  him  was  whether  it  should  be  brought  on 
at  a  time  favorable  to  France  or  to  Germany.  He  knew 
that  France  was  all  unready  for  war,  but  that  the  call- 
ing of  a  Hohenzollern  monarch  to  Spain  would  provoke 
a  conflict  in  spite  of  this  unreadiness.     To  his  great  dis- 


BISMARCK  455 

appointment  King  William  had  wrecked  his  whole  plan. 
His  disappointment  was  such  that  he  was  unable  to  sleep 
and  renewed  his  threats  to  retire  from  office. 

But  who  shall  limit  the  possibilities  of  mob  folly? 
Despite  the  fact  that  the  French  government,  the  Cham- 
bers, the  people,  had  been  amply  informed  from  the  most 
trustworthy  sources  that  their  army  was  utterly  unpre- 
pared, they  insisted  on  demands  which  could  only  lead 
immediately  to  war.  From  the  strongholds  of  French 
demagoguery,  from  the  sensation-mongers  in  the:  press, 
from  public  meetings,  and  from  the  Legislative  Chambers 
came  screams  that  the  answer  of  the  Hohenzollern  Prince 
had  but  made  the  insult  to  France  more  deadly.  "Why 
did  the  answer  come  from  Spain?"  "Why  did  it  not 
come  from  the  Prussian  King  f "  1 

Driven  on  by  this  tempest,  the  Duke  de  Gramont  tele- 
graphed additional  orders  to  Benedetti.  He  must  secure 
from  King  William  not  only  the  young  Prince's  renun- 
ciation but  a  declaration  that  no  Hohenzollern  would 
ever  again,  under  any  circumstances,  become  a  candidate 
for  the  Spanish  throne.  Benedetti  was  not  allowed  to 
relax  his  efforts  for  an  instant.  Every  day  during  that 
fateful  week  from  the  6th  to  the  13th  of  July,  Gramont 
was  plying  him  with  telegraphic  orders  to  press  the  King 
harder  and  get  more  distinct  assurances,  in  fact,  to  get 
evidences  for  the  Paris  mob  that  the  King  had  been 
humiliated.  And  to  make  this  still  more  sure  Gramont 
wrote  out  with  his  own  hand  for  the  Prussian  minister 
at  Paris  a  sort  of  apology  and  pledge  which  the  Prus- 
sian King  should  make  to  the  French  Emperor.2 

i  For  choice  specimens  of  mob  oratory  in  the  French  Chamber,  see 
Benedetti,  Ma  Mission  en  Prusse,  appendix,  pp.  428,  429,  and  elsewhere. 

2  For  a  striking  specimen  of  De  Gramont's  efforts  to  humiliate  the 
Emperor  William,  see  the  passage  underlined  by  Gramont  himself  in  his 
telegram  to  Benedetti  July  12,  at  2  a.m.,  marked  "tres  conftdentiellc,"  in 
Benedetti's  Ma  Mission,  etc.,  p.  365.  For  accounts  valuable  because 
Jotted  down  by  a  man  of  high  character  who  was  in  constant  attendance 


456  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

King  William's  position  had  become  difficult  indeed. 
He  had  never  liked  the  candidacy  of  the  Hohenzollern 
Prince.  He  longed  for  peace,  and  his  private  letters 
show  that  he  was  glad  when,  as  he  supposed,  the  whole 
thing  was  ended.  On  the  other  hand,  Bismarck  during 
the  whole  week  was  telegraphing  him  from  Varzin  to 
stand  firm,  and,  if  any  difficulty  arose,  to  refer  the  mat- 
ter to  his  Chancellor;  in  various  ways  also  Bismarck 
hinted  that  the  King  should  summon  him  to  the  scene 
of  action.  His  Majesty  was  not  so  easily  managed:  he 
evidently  feared  Bismarck's  warlike  proclivities  and  pre- 
ferred to  deal  with  the  matter  himself.  But  it  soon 
became  too  much  for  him  and  on  the  11th  he  telegraphed 
for  his  Chancellor.  It  was  too  late — the  crisis  came 
before  Bismarck  could  arrive.  For  on  the  morning  of 
the  13th,  as  the  King  was  taking  his  morning  walk  and 
sipping  his  warm  soda  amid  the  crowd  of  his  subjects 
on  the  promenade  at  Ems,  Benedetti,  pressing  him  for 
a  distinct  pledge  that  he  would  never  allow  a  Hohenzol- 
lern to  accept  the  Spanish  crown,  was  told  by  the  aged 
monarch,  courteously,  though  firmly,  that  he  could  not 
give  it,  and  that,  as  regarded  the  renunciation  of  Prince 
Leopold,  he  had  received  no  further  news.  To  this  the 
official  who  forwarded  the  King's  account  of  the  inter- 
view to  Bismarck  added  that  His  Majesty,  having  after- 
ward received  a  letter  from  the  Prince  confirming  his 
renunciation,  had  decided  not  to  receive  Count  Bene- 
detti again,  but  to  send  the  news  to  him  by  an  aid- 
de-camp,  who  should  state  that  His  Majesty  had  nothing 
more  to  say.  The  official  also  added  that  the  King  left 
Bismarck  to  decide  whether  the  matter  should  be  com- 
municated to  the  Prussian  ambassadors  and  to  the  press. 

upon  the  Emperor  at  Ems,  see  the  life  of  Heinrich  Abeken  (by  his  wife), 
pp.  373-378.  As  to  other  unfortunate  characteristics  of  Gramont,  and 
especially  his  untruthfulness,  see  Rechberg,  in  Friedjung,  Der  Kampf  um 
die  Vorherrschaft  in  Deutschland,  appendix,  vol.  ii,  p.  526.  It  is  to  be 
noted  that  Recliberg  was  an  Austrian. 


BISMARCK  457 

The  first  effect  of  this  telegram  was  to  disgust  Bis- 
marck, utterly.  Instead  of  continuing  his  journey  from 
Berlin  to  Ems,  he  was  inclined  to  return  to  Varzin.  He 
Was  the  responsible  minister  of  the  crown  and  ought  to 
have  been  consulted,  and  the  King  had  made  concessions 
at  which  the  French  mob  was  shrieking  with  joy  and 
demanding  more.  The  Hohenzollern  candidacy,  for 
which  Bismarck  had  labored  so  earnestly  and  so  long, 
the  King  had  thrown  overboard,  and  the  dispatch  seemed 
to  show  that  even  with  this  the  King  had  not  ended  the 
matter  decisively,  and  that  he  might  consent  to  continue 
negotiations  still  further.  This  was  contrary  to  all  Bis- 
marck's ideas.  He  felt  himself  disgraced  before  his 
country  and  before  Europe;  and  he  found  immediate 
support  from  Moltke  and  Boon,  who  met  him  in  Berlin. 
They  too  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that,  as  France 
was  determined  on  war,  there  could  be  no  better  time  for 
Germany  than  the  present.  The  King  seemed  to  them 
to  have  flung  away  the  opportunity  and  enabled  France 
to  delay  hostilities  until  she  was  fully  ready:  all  three 
were  greatly  depressed  at  the  turn  things  had  taken,  but 
presently,  under  the  King's  permission  given  in  the  tel- 
egram, Bismarck  proceeded  to  edit  it  for  the  press.  Bun- 
ning  together  the  two  parts  of  it — that  which  came  from 
the  King  and  the  addition  by  the  official — he  simply  took 
enough  from  the  whole  to  make  it  appear  that,  Bene- 
detti  having  demanded  the  irrevocable  pledge,  the  King 
had  refused  it  and  dismissed  him  curtly  and  finally. 

This  new  version  of  the  dispatch  being  read  by  Bis- 
marck to  the  two  generals,  both  were  pleased  with  it. 
As  Bismarck  afterward  told  the  story,  Boon  said, 
"This  is  better";  Moltke  said,  "Now  it  has  a  different 
ring, — it  sounded  before  like  a  parley,  now  it  is  like  a 
defiance";  Bismarck  himself  said,  "This  will  be  like  a 
red  rag  to  the  Gallic  bull."  Vastly  significant  was  the 
fact  that  before  sending  it  Bismarck  questioned  Moltke 


458  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

once  more  regarding  the  chances  of  victory  in  case  of 
an  immediate  war,  and  that  the  great  strategist  answered, 
guardedly,  that  they  were  in  favor  of  Germany.1 

The  dispatch  was  now  sent  to  the  press  and  before 
midnight  reached  Paris.  The  French  passion  for  war 
now  became  resistless:  the  Paris  mob  went  wild  for  it; 
the  press  demanded  it;  the  Emperor's  favorite  generals 
and  courtiers  insisted  upon  it.  One  eminent  statesman 
alone  stood  in  the  French  legislative  body  against  it — 
Thiers.  Though  during  his  whole  political  life  he  had 
been  wont  to  exasperate  France  against  Germany,  and 
had  very  recently  insisted  that  no  French  government 
should  permit  German  unity,  he  now  exerted  himself  to 
hold  the  nation  back  from  war.  With  his  immense  knowl- 
edge of  political  and  military  affairs,  he  saw  the  unreadi- 
ness of  France  and  knew  that  she  was  approaching  an 
abyss.  He  was  a  judge  in  the  matter  of  catastrophes 
and  revolution,  for  he  had  taken  part  in  wrecking  the 
three  preceding  governments  and  had  learned  to  read  the 
signs  of  the  times.  "With  tears  in  his  eyes  he  besought 
the  legislative  body  to  hold  back.  All  in  vain :  the  French 
Senate  approved  the  declaration  of  war  by  a  unanimous 
vote  and  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  by  a  majority  of  245 
to  10. 

In  reply  to  this,  Prussia,  and  indeed  all  Germany, 
showed  a  determination  more  sober,  but  quite  as  sin- 

i  Sundry  recent  writers,  in  view  of  slight  discrepancies  in  Bismarck's 
Reminiscences,  and  of  an  alleged  letter  in  the  possession  of  the  family, 
which  has  now  disappeared,  have  seemed  inclined  to  consider  the  general 
account  of  the  editing  of  the  King's  telegram  by  Bismarck  and  the  two 
generals  as  merely  legendary,  but  by  far  the  better  opinion  seems  to 
accept  the  facts  as  above  stated.  Horst  Kohl  has  amply  proved  the 
amazing  tenacity  of  Bismarck's  memory,  as  shown  in  the  Reflections  and 
Reminiscences,  and  even  Lenz,  guarded  as  he  is,  concedes  the  general 
truth  of  the  statement  as  made.  See  Horst  Kohl,  Wegweiser  durch  Bis- 
marck's Oedanken  und  Erinnerungen,  pp.  117,  118;  also  the  same  in  the 
Regesta;  also  Lenz,  Geschichte  Bismarck's,  pp.  349  and  following;  also 
Matter,  Bismarck  et  Son  Temps,  vol.  iii,  p.  60,  note. 


BISMARCK  459 

cere.  On  July  19  the  French  declaration  of  war  was 
received  in  Berlin.  In  his  speeches  before  the  imperial 
parliament  Bismarck  now  insisted  that  this  declaration 
resulted  from  a  French  determination  to  make  war  on 
any  pretext, — that  it  was,  in  fact,  the  first  official  com- 
munication in  the  premises  from  the  French  to  the  Ger- 
man government;  and  in  a  diplomatic  circular  he  dealt 
with  much  emphasis  on  the  haste  of  France  to  humiliate 
Prussia  and  her  venerable  monarch.  Most  effective 
manoeuvre  of  all,  he  ere  long  revealed  to  Europe,  through 
the  London  Times  and  other  agencies,  the  previous 
French  proposals  to  annex  to  France,  in  time  of  peace, 
territories  belonging  to  Belgium,  the  Netherlands,  and 
South  Germany ;  and  some  of  these  proposals,  on  French 
official  paper  and  in  the  handwriting  of  Benedetti,  he 
circulated  widely  in  facsimile.  Thus  he  put  France  in 
the  wrong  before  the  whole  world. 

The  war  was  pressed  on  by  Germany  with  amazing 
vigor  and  precision :  over  five  hundred  thousandmenbeing 
brought  by  her  into  the  field,  and  her  entire  force,  includ- 
ing reserves,  numbering  fully  a  million.  Within  a  fort- 
night three  great  German  armies  were  upon  the  Rhine, 
and  two  days  later  they  began  a  vast  series  of  victories ;  at 
Weissenburg,  Woerth,  Spicheren,  Mars  la  Tour,  Grave- 
lotte,  everywhere,  the  French  were  forced  to  yield ;  never 
did  men  fight  more  bravely  than  they,  but  it  was  soon  seen 
that  all  their  heroism  must  end  in  defeat.  For,  while 
the  German  armies  were  like  instruments  of  precision, 
perfect  in  construction,  management,  cooperation,  direc- 
tion, distribution,  the  French  forces  were  from  first  to 
last  in  dire  disorder.  The  dispatches  between  the  com- 
manders and  the  government  at  Paris,  afterward  pub- 
lished, showed  complete  disorganization:  the  whole 
machinery  dislocated;  subordinate  officers  and  soldiers 
groping  for  their  regiments;  commanders  without  maps 
of  the  country  in  which  they  were  to  operate;  artillery 


460  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

without  ammunition,  and  ammunition  without  artillery; 
troops  without  arms,  and  even  without  shoes;  and  soon 
Marshal  MacMahon,  having  been  terribly  beaten  in  pre- 
liminary battles  and  skillfully  prevented  from  uniting  his 
forces  with  the  principal  French  army,  was  pressed  into 
the  great  amphitheatre  of  hills  at  Sedan  on  the  Meuse 
and  forced  to  make  one  of  the  greatest  surrenders  in  his- 
tory— the  captives  including  the  Emperor,  Marshal  Mac- 
Mahon, forty  generals,  over  eighty  thousand  troops,  with 
the  whole  enormous  equipment  of  MacMahon 's  army  and 
of  the  fortress  of  Sedan. 

During  the  war  thus  far  Bismarck  had  taken  a  very 
subordinate  part;  he  had  been  marching  with  the  army, 
advising  King  "William,  keeping  in  touch  with  the  cabinets 
of  the  world,  and  incidentally  looking  after  his  two  sons, 
of  whom  one  was  severely  wounded  and  the  other  un- 
horsed in  a  fearful  charge  of  cavalry  at  Mars  la  Tour; 
but  now  he  stands  forth  as  the  leading  personage.  He 
it  is  who  first  waits  upon  the  fallen  Napoleon,  with  pro- 
found respect,  but  sternly  preventing  any  meeting  be- 
tween the  imperial  captive  and  the  impressionable  Prus- 
sian King  until  all  the  terms  of  the  capitulation  had  been 
settled.  Now  came,  on  September  4,  the  formal  de- 
thronement of  the  Emperor  by  the  Parisian  authorities, 
the  establishment  of  the  Third  French  Republic,  and  this 
complicated  Bismarck's  problem  vexatiously.  Up  to  this 
time  he  had  dealt  with  the  Napoleonic  government;  that 
government  now  no  longer  existed  and  the  Emperor  was 
a  captive  on  German  soil.  To  find  a  French  government 
or  to  establish  one  with  which  Germany  could  treat,  be- 
came a  problem  long  and  intricate. 

More  German  victories  followed,  clearly  ushering  in  a 
new  epoch.  In  September  Strasburg  capitulated  and 
Bismarck  saw  realized  his  great  dream  of  recovering  Al- 
sace and  its  historic  capital,  which  had  been  taken  away 
from  Germany  by  Louis  XIV  two  hundred  years  before. 


BISMARCK  461 

A  few  days  later  Bismarck  established  himself  in  Ver- 
sailles, and  thence,  from  his  modest  lodgings  at  the  house 
of  Madame  Jesse,  he  now  directed  events.  His  labors 
were  prodigious :  there  came  royal  councils,  negotiations 
with  princes,  generals,  bishops,  statesmen  from  various 
provinces,  envoys  from  various  nations,  and,  above  all, 
with  Thiers,  Jules  Favre,  and  others,  who  sought  to  bring 
about  a  truce,  and,  if  possible,  a  peace.  His  first  effort 
to  establish  a  responsible  government  in  France  with 
which  a  binding  treaty  could  be  made  proved  especially 
difficult.  Everywhere  was  confusion:  a  Government  of 
National  Defense,  weak  and  distracted ;  adherents  of  the 
house  of  Bourbon,  of  the  house  of  Orleans,  of  the  house 
of  Bonaparte,  each  plotting,  in  its  way,  a  monarchical 
restoration;  masses  of  anarchists  seeking  to  carry  out 
their  wild  will  in  the  main  French  cities ;  and  Gambetta, 
who,  having  escaped  in  a  balloon  from  Paris,  was  trying 
to  bring  together  in  Southwestern  France  a  parliament 
from  which  all  but  members  of  his  party  were  to  be 
excluded.  Meanwhile  German  victories  continued:  less, 
than  two  months  after  the  capitulation  at  Sedan  came  a 
triumph  in  some  respects  more  overwhelming,  at  Metz. 
This  city  was  the  chief  bulwark  of  Eastern  France,  the 
great  fortress  of  Lorraine,  the  most  important  of  West- 
ern Europe,  after  Gibraltar.  In  its  surrender  were 
included  three  marshals  of  France,  six  thousand  officers, 
over  one  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  soldiers,  three 
hundred  thousand  stands  of  arms  and  a  vast  mass  of 
war  material.  Now  came  a  complication  especially  vex- 
atious. Ever  since  the  treaty  closing  the  Crimean  War, 
which  had  forced  the  Russians  to  give  up  their  supremacy 
in  the  Black  Sea  over  their  own  seaports  and  along  their 
own  coasts,  they  had  borne  that  ignominy  in  silence ;  but 
now  they  held  their  peace  no  longer.  In  this  time  of 
confusion  they  pressed  forward  their  proposal  to  annul 
that  treaty.     So  far  as  Germany  was  concerned  it  was 


462  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

embarrassing,  for  Great  Britain  was,  of  course,  bitterly 
offended,  and  Bismarck,  who  had  before  beginning  the 
war  with  France  favored  this  demand  secretly,  must  now 
do  so  openly.  But  with  this  complication  he  grappled, 
Great  Britain  reluctantly  yielded  and  all  Europe  thought 
it  best  to  acquiesce. 

To  the  vast  mass  of  affairs  thus  brought  upon  Bis- 
marck there  was  now  added  a  problem  in  many  respects 
more  complicated  and  far-reaching  than  all  the  others, 
for  there  loomed  large  and  portentous  the  old  German 
aspiration  for  national  unity  and  for  a  government  fitly 
embodying  it.  The  practical  difficulties  were  enormous. 
Old  rights,  privileges,  precedences,  jealousies,  distrusts, 
hatreds,  personal,  racial,  geographical,  religious, — differ- 
ences in  theories,  in  customs,  in  laws,  in  political  philoso- 
phy, in  readings  of  the  past,  in  hopes  for  the  future, — 
all  combined  to  render  the  problem  insoluble.  The  great- 
est difficulties  of  all  were  with  the  southern  states.  With 
two  of  them,  Baden  and  Hesse,  the  work  was  compara- 
tively easy,  but  with  Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg  the  contest 
was  long  and  severe.  Upon  the  rulers  and  statesmen  of 
each  of  them  Bismarck  brought  to  bear  all  his  skill  and 
force.  All  his  patience  too  was  needed,  for  at  times 
when  he  seemed  to  have  convinced  or  conquered  them, 
they  suddenly  broke  away  and  he  must  begin  again. 
After  endless  discussion  Wiirtemberg  was  won,  but  Ba- 
varia, foremost  of  all  German  kingdoms  save  Prussia, 
seemed  hopelessly  lost. 

Yet  the  progress  toward  unity  went  on.  In  December 
a  deputation  from  the  North  German  Parliament  arrived 
in  Versailles,  bearing  to  King  William  an  offer  of  the 
Imperial  crown,  and  at  its  head  was  Simson,  the  same 
who  in  1849  had  made  the  same  offer  to  Frederick  Wil- 
liam IV  and  seen  it  rejected.  That  former  rejection  of 
the  crown  had  met  with  Bismarck's  hearty  approval ;  but 
now  all  was  changed.     The  former  Prussian  King  had 


BISMARCK  463 

refused  the  Imperial  crown  because  the  offer  had  not 
come  from  his  brother  monarchs  of  Germany.  They  had 
opposed  it  bitterly,  and  most  bitter  of  all  had  been  the 
Wittelsbach  monarch  of  Bavaria,  who  had  passionately 
declared:  "Never  will  I  submit  myself  to  a  Hohenzol- 
lern"  {"Ich  unterwerfe  mich  keinem  Hohenzollem"). 
To  meet  this  opposition  Bismarck  had  quietly  labored 
for  years  with  a  skill  and  patience  almost  superhuman. 
In  the  Bavarian  parliament  prevailed  the  most  bitter 
opposition  to  his  policies;  the  Church  abhorred  them;  the 
peasantry  were  trained  to  hate  the  very  name  of  Prussia. 
Many  counselors  now  urged  that  Germany  dethrone  the 
Bavarian  King  and  dismember  its  territory;  but  against 
these  Bismarck  stood  for  Bavaria,  as  formerly  he  had 
stood  against  the  Prussian  King,  the  army,  and  the  whole 
nation,  for  Austria.  With  the  Bavarian  King,  half 
genius,  half  madman,  he  had  long  maintained,  with  in- 
finite self-control,  a  friendly  correspondence,  yielding  to 
that  monarch's  whims,  but  steadily  leading  him  toward 
his  duty  to  the  German  nation — pressing  upon  him  the 
argument  that,  while  a  King  of  Bavaria  might  not  accept 
as  his  superior  a  King  of  Prussia,  he  might  accept  an 
Emperor  in  Germany.  Now  came  the  reward.  Though 
the  Bavarian  parliament  still  held  back  from  entering 
the  imperial  union,  there  arrived  a  letter  from  the  Ba- 
varian King,  virtually  in  Bismarck's  own  words,  urging 
the  reestablishment  of  the  Empire  and  the  proclamation 
of  the  King  of  Prussia  as  German  Emperor.  The  other 
rulers  had  already  been  secured.  Thus  was  the  old  ob- 
jection made  by  Frederick  William  IV  of  Prussia  brought 
to  naught:  an  offer  of  the  crown  had  at  last  come  from 
the  princes. 

There  was  no  longer  need  to  wait  for  the  Bavarian 
parliament,  and  on  January  18,  1871,  was  made  the 
solemn  proclamation  of  the  Empire  to  the  world.  Sim- 
ple as  it  all  was,  nothing  could  have  been  more  historic- 


464  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

ally  fit  or  dramatic.  It  was  in  the  great  hall  of  Louis 
XIV,  the  most  sumptuous  in  the  palace  of  Versailles. 
Eanke  had  once  said  to  Thiers,  during  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian war,  "Germany  is  fighting  against  Louis  XIV"; 
now  came  the  triumph  over  that  inveterate  enemy.  In 
that  Hall  of  Mirrors,  directly  beneath  its  inscriptions 
glorifying  the  invasion  and  humiliation  of  Germany  by 
the  Grand  Monarch,  the  Emperor  stood  on  a  simple  plat- 
form, in  the  midst  of  a  delegation  of  German  princes. 
At  his  side  were  his  son,  destined  to  succeed  him  as  the 
Emperor  Frederick  III,  and  his  son-in-law,  the  Grand 
Duke  of  Baden,  who  had  long  labored  for  a  united  Ger- 
many; before  him  were  the  great  generals,  with  Moltke 
and  Eoon  at  their  head,  and  leading  statesmen,  at  whose 
head  stood  Bismarck,  who  now  read  the  proclamation 
which  established  the  German  Empire.  Thunderous 
salutes,  bursting  forth  from  the  army  which  was  besieg- 
ing Paris,  echoing  over  German  camps  throughout 
France,  and  thence  repeated  throughout  Germany,  an- 
nounced the  event.  Nor  was  this  all ;  the  new  nation  was 
ushered  in  by  a  wonderful  series  of  new  victories:  Le 
Mans  on  the  12th ;  the  surrender  of  Belf ort  on  the  17th ; 
St.  Quentin  and  Mont-Valerien  on  the  19th ;  the  capitula- 
tion of  Paris  on  the  28th ;  and  the  disarmament  of  Bour- 
baki's  army,  the  last  great  army  of  France, — driven  upon 
Swiss  soil, — during  the  fortnight  following. 

The  great  question  of  the  treaties  now  drew  on.  After 
a  world  of  trouble,  a  legislative  body  had  been  secured 
which  had  some  right  to  speak  for  the  nation.  Here 
again  was  shown  Bismarck's  skill  and  decision.  Gam- 
betta,  in  the  wild  hope  of  continuing  the  war,  still 
endeavored  to  exclude  all  who  had  supported  the  Empire 
from  any  position  in  the  new  republic,  and,  indeed,  from 
voting  for  its  representatives.  At  this  Bismarck 
stretched  forth  his  arm,  and  brought  all  this  folly  to 
naught.    He  declared  against  all  proscription  and  insisted 


BISMARCK  465 

upon  a  free  election  by  the  whole  people.  In  a  free 
election  a  national  assembly  was  now  chosen,  which  on 
February  12, 1871,  began  its  sessions  at  Bordeaux.  This 
body  chose,  as  chief  of  the  executive  department,  Thiers ; 
and  he,  with  his  ministers,  Jules  Favre  and  others,  speed- 
ily began  negotiations  for  peace.  In  the  tedious  diplo- 
matic struggle  which  followed,  Bismarck  showed  the  same 
masterly  qualities  so  evident  in  his  previous  career :  ask- 
ing at  first  more  than  he  probably  expected  to  obtain, 
he  demanded  Alsace  and  German-speaking  Lorraine, 
with  the  border  fortresses  of  Metz  and  Belfort,  and  an 
indemnity  of  six  thousand  millions  of  francs.  Of  the 
two  negotiators  on  the  French  side,  Thiers  had  been 
prime  minister  of  France  and  had  won  fame  as  an  his- 
torian, debater,  and  financier;  Favre,  a  former  tribune 
of  the  people,  was  renowned  for  forensic  oratory.  And 
now  there  came  a  mixture  of  tragedy  and  comedy.  The 
French  representatives  insisted  passionately  and  even 
with  tears  that  the  indemnity  named  was  utterly  impos- 
sible; that  France  was  wholly  unable  to  pay  it  or  any 
sum  approaching  it ;  and  that,  if  counting  it  had  begun  at 
the  birth  of  Christ,  it  would  not  yet  be  finished.  To  this 
Bismarck  replied,  "But  I  have  provided  for  that  very 
difficulty, — I  have  brought  from  Berlin  a  little  man  who 
begins  counting  long  before  the  birth  of  Christ,,;  and 
upon  this  he  introduced  the  Jewish  banker,  Bleichroeder, 
who  found  no  difficulty  in  proving  that  France  was  so  rich 
that  the  indemnity  asked  was  really  too  small.  Again, 
when  the  French  envoys  became  wildly  eloquent,  protest- 
ing, haranguing,  and  orating  upon  the  dishonor  of  France 
and  her  determination  to  die  rather  than  yield,  Bismarck 
objecting,  as  he  afterward  said,  to  being  "addressed  as 
if  he  were  a  public  meeting, ' '  replied  in  German,  of  which 
neither  Thiers  nor  Favre  understood  a  word ;  and,  when 
they  answered  that  they  could  not  understand  him,  Bis- 
marck replied,  "Neither  can  I  understand  you."  And 
30 


466  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

again,  when  in  this  diplomatic  struggle  Thiers  and  Favre, 
representing  the  republicans,  who  dreaded  Bonapartisni 
above  all  things,  halted  and  delayed,  Bismarck  simply 
threatened  to  recall  the  captive  Emperor  Napoleon,  and 
to  allow  the  myriads  of  Bonapartist  soldiers  from  Ger- 
man prison-camps  to  put  him  again  on  the  throne.  Nor 
was  this  all.  The  French,  trying  to  enlist  European 
public  opinion,  spread  impassioned  appeals  throughout 
the  world.  On  one  point  they  laid  special  stress:  that 
Prussia  had  no  right  to  continue  hostilities  against 
France,  since  the  power  which  demanded  the  war,  the 
Emperor,  had  fallen.  To  this  Bismarck  replied  by  a 
European  circular  reminding  the  world  that  the  war  had 
been  demanded  unanimously  by  the  French  Senate  and 
with  virtual  unanimity  by  the  popular  representative 
body  and  by  the  French  press. 

Appeals  for  European  intervention  being  still  made  by 
the  French,  Bismarck  sent  forth  another  circular,  sol- 
emnly warning  the  European  powers  that  anything  like 
foreign  intervention  could  only  arouse  false  hopes  among 
the  French  people  and  so  prolong  the  horrors  of  war. 
To  yet  another  appeal  from  France  to  Europe  declaring 
that  Germany  had  determined  to  degrade  her  to  the  rank 
of  a  power  of  the  second  grade  by  taking  away  vast 
territories  from  her,  Bismarck  answered  in  a  circular 
showing  that  France  had  thirty-eight  millions  of  inhab- 
itants, or,  including  her  leading  colonies,  forty-two  mil- 
lions, and  the  territory  demanded  included  only  about 
a  million  and  a  half. 

In  all  these  Bismarck  circulars  there  was  an  undertone 
of  defiance  which  all  foreign  powers  thought  it  best  to 
heed.  Especially  pithy  as  regarded  the  taking  of  Stras- 
burg  and  Metz  was  Bismarck's  argument  that,  as  there 
had  been  twenty-three  unprovoked  invasions  of  Germany 
from  France,  in  days  gone  by,  and  not  one,  save  in  retali- 
ation, from  Germany  into  France,  Germany  was  hence- 


BISMARCK  467 

forth  determined  to  keep  the  key  of  her  two  western 
doors  in  her  own  hands.  The  Treaty  of  Frankfort,  which 
followed  and  which  Bismarck  signed,  not  only  restored  to 
Germany  Alsace  and  a  large  part  of  Lorraine,  including 
Strasburg  and  Metz,  but  exacted  an  indemnity  of  five 
thousand  millions.  Belfort,  important  as  its  conquest 
had  been,  was  thus  relinquished,  as  were  also  one  thou- 
sand millions  of  the  indemnity  originally  demanded. 

The  constitution  of  the  German  Empire  was  now 
adopted, — virtually  as  Bismarck  had  drafted  it.  Its 
Parliament  represented  twenty-five  states,  exclusive  of 
Alsace-Lorraine,  and  was  divided  into  an  Imperial  Coun- 
cil (Bundesrath)  and  an  Imperial  Diet  (Reichstag).  In 
the  first  of  these  bodies  the  states  were  represented 
mainly  in  rough  proportion  to  their  population,  Prussia 
having  seventeen  votes,  Bavaria  six,  Saxony  and  Wurtem- 
berg  four  each,  a  few  other  states  three  or  two  each,  and 
the  remaining  states  one  each. 

Though  this  constitution  showed  some  resemblances 
to  that  of  the  American  Union,  the  differences  were  far 
greater.  The  American  idea  of  equality  between  the 
states  was  cast  aside.  To  secure  national  unity  Bis- 
marck gave  up  all  mere  doctrinaire  uniformity :  Prussia 
was  given  a  veto  power  on  all  changes  in  the  constitution 
and  virtually  on  all  fundamental  legislation  regarding 
the  army,  the  navy,  and  the  taxes ;  privileges  superior  to 
those  of  smaller  states  were  also  given  to  three  or  four 
of  the  minor  monarchies,  notably  to  Bavaria,  and  in  a 
less  degree  to  "Wurtemberg,  as  regards  various  military, 
diplomatic,  and  fiscal  matters;  the  central  legislative 
power  was  extended  further  than  our  own,  but  the  central 
administrative  power  was,  from  an  American  point  of 
view,  strangely  hampered  by  entrusting  it  largely  to  offi- 
cials of  the  different  states. 

As  to  the  military  power,  Bismarck  recognized  the  facts 
in  the  case  and,  above  all,  the  fact  that  Germany  has  on 


468         SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

all  sides  hereditary  enemies  and  on  no  side  extended 
natural  frontiers:  therefore  it  was  that  the  combined 
army  was  conformed  to  Prussian  principles  and  kept 
under  Prussian  control. 

Naturally,  in  his  constitution-building,  Bismarck  saw 
the  need  of  continuity  in  policy,  and  to  this  end  he  adopted 
an  idea  apparently  American  rather  than  European; 
for  he  avoided  that  imitation  of  English  ministerial  re- 
sponsibility which  has  cost  so  many  continental  states  so 
dear.  He  retained  in  the  constitution  the  power  of  dis- 
solving Parliament,  but  without  requiring  any  accom- 
panying dissolution  of  a  ministry;  as  a  result  he  sat 
serene  at  the  head  of  German  affairs  and  saw  some  forty 
different  ministries  win,  waste,  and  lose  power  in  the 
French  Eepublic. 

As  to  the  executive  branch,  King  William  was  made 
Emperor,  but,  curiously,  the  most  serious  struggle  which 
arose  on  this  measure  concerned  simply  the  imperial 
title.  King  William,  who  took  pride  in  his  Prussian 
kingship,  made  glorious  by  Frederick  the  Great,  cared 
apparently  little  for  the  title  of  Emperor,  and  insisted 
that  if  he  took  it  at  all  he  should  be  styled  "Emperor  of 
Germany."  This  was  objected  to  by  the  lesser  German 
sovereigns,  and,  indeed,  was  disliked  by  thinking  Ger- 
man statesmen  generally,  as  indicating  a  more  direct  and 
complete  territorial  control  than  was  needed  for  the 
maintenance  of  German  unity.  It  was,  therefore,  decided 
that  a  mediaeval  precedent  should  be  followed  and  that 
the  title  should  be  " German  Emperor";  and  this  Bis- 
marck supported  steadily.  As  King  William  declined  to 
yield,  he  was  proclaimed  simply  as  "Emperor,"  the  style 
"German  Emperor"  being  afterward  gradually  adopted 
in  public  documents. 

Under  the  headship  of  the  Emperor,  sometimes  nomi- 
nal, sometimes  very  real,  Bismarck  was  made  Chancellor, 
and  as  to  his  office  he  stamped  his  theory  and  practice 


BISMARCK  469 

deeply  upon  the  constitution.  He  had  never  been  able 
to  work  well  with  equals.  Even  in  his  young  manhood 
he  could  not  work  with  his  brother  in  managing  the 
family  estates ;  in  the  various  legislative  bodies  to  which 
he  had  belonged  he  had  constantly  soared  above  his  as- 
sociates; at  Frankfort  his  one  great  effort  had  been  to 
drive  out  the  Austrian  ambassador,  his  only  equal  at  the 
green  table;  in  each  of  his  embassies  he  had  been  sur- 
rounded only  by  subordinates ;  and  when  he  became  min- 
ister of  the  Prussian  kingdom  he  must  be  Minister 
President.  Therefore  it  was  that  as  Chancellor  he  was 
the  only  Minister  of  the  Empire.  There  was  no  other. 
He  would  have  no  Imperial  cabinet.  He  called  about  him 
strong  men,  but  they  were  known,  not  as  Ministers,  but 
as  " Secretaries " :  he  would  have  "subordinates,  but  no 
colleagues."  There  was  for  a  time  a  Vice-President  of 
the  Prussian  Ministry  who  acted  as  a  sort  of  Vice-Chan- 
cellor, but  after  a  brief  service  he  retired  and  had  no 
successor.  To  the  Chancellor  was  given  the  title  of 
Prince,  with  an  estate  valued  at  about  a  million  of  Prus- 
sian dollars  added  by  the  Emperor  to  those  which  had 
formerly  been  given  him,  and  there  was  appropriated  as 
his  official  residence  the  superb  Radzivill  palace  and  park 
in  Berlin.  Sovereign  and  people  vied  with  each  other  in 
doing  him  honor.  In  the  prime  of  life  he  had  reached 
a  position  such  as  had  been  held  by  no  other  man  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  save  during  the  ten  imperial  years 
of  the  first  Napoleon.1 

i  For  Bismarck's  mode  of  working  on  the  constitution,  especially  through 
Lothar  Bucher,  see  his  Reflections  and  Reminiscences;  also  Busch 
and  Keudell.  For  an  excellent  statement  in  detail  regarding  the  Imperial, 
Prussian,  and  other  German  constitutions,  see  A.  Lawrence  Lowell,  Gov- 
ernments and  Parties  in  Continental  Europe,  vol.  i,  chaps,  v  and  vi. 


IV 

THE  three  wars — against  Denmark,  Austria,  and 
France — being  ended,  and  the  German  Empire 
established,  Berlin  became  the  centre  of  European  politi- 
cal activity  and  Bismarck  the  leading  European  person- 
age. In  view  of  the  war  cloud  hanging  over  Russia, 
Austria,  and  Turkey,  his  main  effort  was  now  for  a  gen- 
eral peace,  and,  obedient  to  his  purpose,  sovereigns  and 
statesmen  made  pilgrimages  to  the  German  capital. 
First  of  all  there  met,  virtually  under  his  presidency,  the 
Emperors  of  Austria,  Russia,  and  Germany,  who,  finally 
yielding  to  his  argument  that  their  common  interest  in 
resisting  anarchy  was  greater  than  the  interest  of  any 
one  of  them  in  feeding  grudges  or  extending  territories, 
came  to  an  understanding  in  behalf  of  peace  and  good 
will. 

Then  came  also  the  Kings  of  Italy,  Sweden,  the  Nether- 
lands, Spain,  various  German  monarchs,  and  a  long  train 
of  lesser  princes,  all  with  their  most  eminent  advisers. 
From  Berlin,  in  return,  went  forth  the  German  Emperor, 
the  Chancellor,  and  the  heir  to  the  imperial  throne,  pay- 
ing visits  and  thus  consolidating  the  virtual  alliance  of 
Germany,  Russia,  Austria,  Italy,  and  Spain,  against  the 
"international"  evil  revealed  by  the  orgies  of  the  Paris 
Commune.  During  all  these  journeys,  while  the  Emperor 
William  was  treated  with  supreme  respect,  the  outbursts 
of  public  feeling  were  for  Bismarck ;  and,  of  all  the  capi- 
tals he  now  visited,  the  most  emphatic  in  its  welcome  was 
Vienna — the  centre  of  the  empire  he  had  so  recently 
conquered. 

Year  after  year  these  political  pilgrimages  continued 

470 


BISMARCK  471 

and  frequent  international  conferences  at  the  Chancel- 
lor's palace  made  it  more  and  more  a  source  of  European 
political  ideas. 

During  the  period  which  now  began,  filled  with  a  series 
of  colossal  achievements  at  home  in  remodeling  and  con- 
solidating the  new  Empire,  there  came  exertions  of  power 
abroad  such  as  Europe  had  not  seen  since  the  days  of 
Cromwell. 

At  the  triumphant  return  of  the  German  troops  into 
Berlin  from  the  French  war,  word  was  brought  him  that 
the  French  outposts  were  encroaching  upon  the  space  re- 
served in  France  by  Germany.  He  was  on  horseback  at 
the  side  of  the  Emperor,  in  the  midst  of  frantic  exhibi- 
tions of  popular  joy,  but,  quietly  asking  for  paper  and 
pencil,  he  telegraphed  orders  to  Paris  that,  unless  the 
French  troops  withdrew,  the  German  army  should  imme- 
diately attack  them :  and  to  this  France  yielded. 

His  hand  was  felt  heavily  in  another  quarter.  The 
Austrian  Chancellor,  Beust,  who  during  long  years  at 
Frankfort,  Dresden,  and  Vienna  had  done  his  best  to 
thwart  every  Prussian  effort,  had  sought  to  retain  his 
position  after  the  war  of  1866  by  abject  submission  and 
fulsome  praise  of  the  new  order  of  things.  But,  peace 
having  been  made  with  France,  Bismarck  determined 
that  there  should  be  no  risk  of  a  return  to  the  old  treach- 
ery and  trickery :  the  Austrian  Chancellor  was  dismissed, 
and  in  his  stead  was  placed  a  man  of  far  different  fibre, 
the  Hungarian  statesman,  Andrassy,  of  whom  Bismarck 
said: — "As  to  Austrian  statesmen  generally,  their  talk 
is  to  me  as  wind  whistling  down  a  chimney ;  but  what 
Andrassy  says  I  know  to  be  true."  And  there  was  an- 
other reason  for  favoring  Andrassy — the  reason  of  a 
far-sighted  statesman:  previous  leaders  in  the  Austrian 
cabinet  had  generally  been  South  Germans,  and  their  eyes 
were  constantly  upon  the  North  and  West — upon  Ger- 
many; Andrassy  was  a  Hungarian  and  his  aspirations 


472  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

were  naturally  for  the  extension  of  Austrian  power  to- 
ward the  South  and  East. 

Even  more  in  the  Crornwellian  manner  was  Bismarck's 
dealing  with  Don  Carlos  and  his  adherents  in  Spain. 
Having  captured  a  small  Spanish  force,  the  Carlists  had 
found  in  it,  to  their  great  joy,  a  Captain  Schmidt,  for- 
merly a  soldier  in  the  Prussian  army,  but  now  a  corre- 
spondent of  a  German  newspaper,  and  they  indulged 
their  hatred  of  Germany  and  of  heretics  by  putting  him 
to  death  as  a  spy.  At  an  earlier  period  there  could  have 
been  no  redress ;  but  times  had  changed :  there  had  come 
a  united  Germany  with  a  German  citizenship  to  be  held 
as  proudly  as  was  that  of  ancient  Eome.  Bismarck 
struck  at  once.  Sending  a  squadron  to  blockade  the  port 
through  which  the  Carlists  obtained  their  supplies,  and 
notifying  the  French  government,  which,  for  reasons  of 
its  own,  was  secretly  aiding  them,  that  this  aid  must 
cease,  he  called  on  the  European  powers  to  recognize  the 
Spanish  government  at  Madrid  against  Don  Carlos,  and 
to  this  call  all  the  powers  yielded  save  Russia.  That 
wanton  murder  cost  the  Spanish  pretender  dear:  up  to 
that  moment  he  had  some  chance  of  succeeding  to  the 
throne  of  Spain ;  thereafter  he  had  none. 

Closely  related  to  this  was  another  effective  stroke. 
In  1874  sundry  French  bishops,  vexed  at  the  success  of 
the  new  German  power  against  the  resistance  of  France 
and  the  intrigues  of  the  Vatican,  burst  forth  into  seditious 
preachments  and  were  evidently  bent  on  goading  the 
French  people  into  religious  war.  To  the  diplomatic  re- 
grets expressed  by  the  French  government  Bismarck  gave 
no  heed.  To  him  the  real  point  was  that  these  denuncia- 
tions gave  new  virulence  to  French  hate  and  new  stimulus 
to  French  revenge,  and  he  therefore  declared  to  Germany 
and  to  the  world  that  his  duty  to  his  country  forbade  his 
waiting  for  war  with  France  until  she  was  fully  prepared 
for  it.     The  French  government,  and,  indeed,  the  French 


BISMARCK  473 

people,  saw  the  point  at  once :  the  fanatical  pulpits  were 
brought  to  reason. 

Following  this  blow  at  Christian  zeal  came  one  equally 
crushing  against  Mohammedan  fanaticism.  Stirred  by 
the  approaching  war  between  Turkey  and  Russia,  a  mob 
had  murdered  the  German  Consul  at  Salonica.  The 
Turkish  government  was,  of  course,  profuse  in  apologies ; 
but  Bismarck,  paying  no  attention  to  them,  straightway 
sent  a  squadron  to  Salonica,  and  did  not  rest  until  six 
of  the  worst  ruffians  were  hanged,  several  careless  offi- 
cials sent  to  prison  or  the  galleys,  and  the  Sultan  obliged 
to  pay  to  the  widow  an  ample  indemnity. 

Hardly  less  remarkable  was  a  blow  struck  for  due 
subordination  in  the  civil  service  of  the  new  Empire. 
Count  Harry  von  Arnim  was  of  a  great  Prussian  family, 
a  man  of  many  gifts,  attractive,  persuasive,  brilliant, 
efficient;  and,  having  been  trained  in  several  important 
diplomatic  positions,  he  had  become  German  ambassador 
at  Paris.  To  his  mind  the  diplomatic  dealings  of  Ger- 
many with  France  thus  far  were  wrong  in  principle.  He 
was  a  monarchist  and  felt  that  Prussia  should  for  her 
own  safety  destroy  republicanism  in  France  and  promote 
a  revival  of  monarchy.  Bismarck's  theory  was  utterly 
opposed  to  this.  The  very  strength  of  his  belief  in  mo- 
narchical government  led  him  to  promote  French  repub- 
licanism. He  frankly  acknowledged  that  he  did  this  in 
order  to  keep  France  weak,  divided  between  factions,  and 
unfit  for  war.  Von  Arnim,  thinking  that  the  German 
Emperor  might  incline  to  convictions  like  his  own,  at  last 
began  to  cherish  the  belief  that  he  might  supplant  Bis- 
marck and  change  the  policy  of  the  Empire.  The  result 
was  a  struggle  in  which,  first  by  skillful  preparation  and 
next  by  rapid  blows,  Bismarck  crushed  his  opponent 
utterly, — imprisoned  him,  disgraced  him,  and  drove  him 
from  the  Empire. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  all  these  triumphs  that  Bismarck 


474  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

received  a  check, — the  greatest  he  ever  met.  The  won- 
derful recovery  of  France  from  her  reverses,  the  speed 
and  ease  with  which  she  paid  the  vast  indenmity,  the 
skill  with  which  she  remodeled  and  enlarged  her  army, 
as  well  as  the  cries  in  the  French  press  for  revenge,  evi- 
dently aroused  in  his  mind  the  thought  that  he  had  failed 
to  make  the  French  nation  incapable  of  doing  further 
injury  to  the  new  Germany.  This  feeling  seemed  to  be- 
come with  him  a  sort  of  obsession.  All  Europe  was  soon 
convinced  that  he  was  planning  a  new  war  in  which  his 
purpose  was  to  cripple  France  for  many  generations. 
Now  was  seen  the  force  of  a  great  and  widespread  moral 
opposition  to  injustice.  Every  great  power  quietly 
arrayed  itself  in  this  matter  against  him,  and  no  head  of 
a  state  showed  himself  more  opposed  to  a  new  attack  on 
France  than  the  Emperor  William.  At  the  Emperor's 
side  also,  in  full  sympathy  with  his  view,  was  his  nephew, 
the  Emperor  Alexander  II ;  and,  the  two  monarchs  having 
conferred  together,  an  end  was  made  to  every  possibility 
of  a  new  war  with  France.  Reluctantly  and  angrily  Bis- 
marck yielded. 

Remembrance  of  this  was  soon  lost  in  events  of  more 
pressing  significance.  In  northern  and  central  Europe 
Bismarck  had  made  peace  sure,  but  in  southeastern 
Europe,  the  long-expected  war  storm  having  burst  at  last, 
there  came  a  fearful  struggle  between  Russia  and  Turkey, 
lasting  nearly  a  year  and  ending  in  the  San  Stefano 
treaty,  which  seemed  likely  to  blot  Turkey  from  the  map 
of  Europe — thus  bringing  Russia  into  immediate  collision 
with  Great  Britain  and  obliging  the  other  great  powers 
to  make  choice  between  them.  Bismarck  now  intervened 
and  at  his  behest  there  met  at  Berlin  in  June  and  July, 
1878,  the  most  important  European  conference  since  the 
Napoleonic  wars  were  closed  by  the  Congress  of  Vienna. 
In  this  body  sat  the  most  eminent  statesmen  of  the  time, 
and,  as  their  president,  the  German  Chancellor.     The 


BISMARCK  475 

tangled  results  of  the  war  were  now  taken  out  of  the 
hands  of  Russia  and  Turkey,  all  concessions  possible  were 
made  to  aggrieved  parties,  and  peace  was  restored. 
Throughout  the  whole  proceeding  Bismarck  was  not 
merely  the  nominal  head,  but  the  master  spirit.  When 
at  one  time  Russia  and  Great  Britain  seemed  on  the  point 
of  breaking  into  open  war,  he  restored  quiet  with  a  tact 
and  mildness  of  which  few  had  thought  him  capable ;  and, 
when  Turkey  seemed  likely  to  plunge  all  into  confusion, 
he  brought  her  to  reason  by  methods  almost  brutal. 

His  readiness  and  force  continued  even  on  an  increas- 
ing scale.  The  Berlin  Congress  having  adjourned,  Rus- 
sia retired  from  it  in  ill  humor, — brooding  over  her  loss 
of  the  vast  concessions  which  she  had  extorted  from 
Turkey  at  San  Stefano.  The  ill  feeling  between  the  Ger- 
man and  Russian  Chancellors  now  became  bitter.  On 
one  hand  the  course  taken  by  Russia  in  thwarting  Bis- 
marck's plan  for  renewing  the  war  against  France,  and 
especially  the  display  made  by  Gortschakoff  regarding 
his  part  in  this,  made  Bismarck's  ill  feeling  acute;  and 
on  the  other  hand  Gortschakoff  had  accumulated  griefs 
and  grudges,  the  chief  of  them  resulting  from  Bismarck's 
superiority.  Although  Bismarck,  at  the  Berlin  Confer- 
ence, had  done  for  the  Russian  interests  all  that  was 
compatible  with  the  interest  of  Europe,  even  to  a  degree 
which  led  him  to  say  that  during  that  time  he  had  acted 
really  as  a  Russian  plenipotentiary,  he  had  failed  to  sat- 
isfy the  Russian  government.  Remembering  the  services 
they  had  rendered  to  Germany  during  her  wars  with 
Austria  and  France,  by  forbearing  to  interfere,  the  Czar 
and  his  Chancellor  had  expected  more.  Bismarck  was 
now  made  a  scapegoat.  The  Russian  press  joined  in  full 
cry  against  him  as  a  traitor ;  the  Czar  complained  of  him 
to  the  German  Emperor  as  an  ingrate;  Gortschakoff, 
passing  through  Berlin,  ostentatiously  shunned  him;  the 
Grand  Dukes,  on  their  way  to  a  public  exhibition  of  their 


476  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

French  sympathies  at  Paris,  took  pains  to  ignore  him; 
Eussian  emissaries  throughout  Europe  were  loud  in  their 
denunciations;  Eussian  tariffs  on  German  goods  were 
made  especially  onerous;  Eussian  troops  were  massed 
near  the  German  frontier,  and  there  were  signs  of  an 
approaching  anti-German  alliance  between  Eussia  and 
France. 

A  statesman  of  ordinary  mold  would  have  protested, 
explained,  expostulated,  apologized;  not  so  Bismarck. 
He  instantly  recognized  the  realities  in  the  case — the 
breadth  of  Eussian  unreason,  the  depth  of  official  preju- 
dice, the  impossibility  within  any  definite  period  of  cor- 
recting these,  and  the  dangers  likely  to  arise  in  the  mean- 
time ;  he  made  no  apologies  or  explanations ;  he  accepted 
the  situation,  and  mastered  it.  Going  to  Vienna  at  once, 
he  speedily  made  a  treaty  which  changed  the  whole  exist- 
ing system  of  European  alliances,  a  treaty  under  which 
Prussia  and  Austria  were  to  stand  together  against  any 
attack  by  Eussia  and  France.  There  had  been  one  diffi- 
culty almost  insurmountable.  The  old  Emperor  William, 
who  was  deeply  attached  to  his  nephew,  Czar  Alexander, 
could  not  bear  the  thought  of  a  change  in  their  life-long 
relations,  and  probably  the  most  earnest  letters  he  ever 
wrote  were  those  in  which  he  besought  Bismarck  not 
to  break  with  Eussia.  But  the  sovereign  was  compelled 
to  yield.  Under  the  Chancellor's  threat  to  resign,  the 
imperial  signature  was  obtained,  and  thus  began  a  new 
guarantee  of  peace  in  Europe,  far  more  stable  than  the 
old, — the  dual  alliance  of  Germany  and  Austria.1 

Bismarck  had  also  made  assurance  doubly  sure  in  an- 
other way  very  characteristic.  Quietly,  in  talks  with  the 
French  representatives  at  the  Berlin  Conference,  he  had 

i  For  light  thrown  into  the  heart  of  this  treaty  and  its  purpose,  see 
two  letters,  one  from  Andrassy  to  Bismarck  and  its  reply,  in  Ford's 
edition  of  The  Correspondence  of  William  I  and  Bismarck,  vol.  ii,  pp. 
200-202. 


BISMARCK  477 

acknowledged  the  justice  of  their  half-humorous,  half- 
melancholy  complaints  that  France  alone,  of  all  the  pow- 
ers, was  securing  no  concessions.  With  sweet  reason- 
ableness he  had  asked,  "Why  does  not  France  take 
Tunis i  It  is  her  close  neighbor  on  the  Mediterranean; 
it  is  a  menace  to  her  in  the  hands  of  its  native  popula- 
tion; why  does  she  not  annex  it?  No  one  will  object." 
This  winged  word  sped  at  once  to  the  French  government 
and  ere  long  France  proceeded  to  take  Tunis;  but  in 
doing  so  secured  for  generations  the  ill  will  of  Italy, 
which  had  long  been  coveting  Tunis,  yet  had  not  dared 
to  take  it.  The  result  was  that  France  was  soon  far 
too  busy  with  this  new  acquisition  of  territory  to  give 
any  trouble  to  Germany,  and  Italy,  in  revenge,  threw 
herself  into  the  dual  compact  of  Germany  with  Austria 
against  France  and  Eussia,  thus  forming  the  Triple 
Alliance.1 

A  curious  change  now  took  place  in  Bismarck's  policy. 
Hitherto  he  had  been  very  tender  toward  Russian  senti- 
ment; now  he  seemed  a  different  being.  The  lesson  he 
seemed  determined  to  teach  Eussia  was  that  the  day  of 
Olmiitz, — when  the  Eussian  government  regarded  Ger- 
many as  a  brood  of  kinglets  and  princelings  to  be  used 
as  might  be  found  most  profitable, — was  forever  gone. 
His  utterances  now  became  defiant,  and  his  policy  drastic. 
Did  a  Muscovite  grand  duke  or  statesman  stop  over 
night  at  Berlin,  the  official  organs  became  explosive  with, 
assertions  of  the  new  doctrine.2 

Ere  long  it  dawned  upon  the  Eussian  mind  that  Bis- 
marck was  not  to  be  scared  into  submission  like  an  ordi- 

i  The  Tunis  episode  is  given  from  the  traditions  at  the  Berlin  Foreign 
Office  during  the  decade  following  the  Conference.  For  Bismarck's  rather 
cynical  remark  that  "'when  they  (the  French)  are  busy  in  Tunis  they 
cease  to  think  of  the  Rhine  frontier,"  see  Busch,  Diary,  ii,  475. 

2  The  present  writer,  who  was  then  in  Berlin,  has  in  his  Autobiography 
given  examples  of  these  explosive  utterances  which  greatly  amused  all 
Europe. 


478  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

nary  statesman;  and  the  old  Eussian  Chancellor  Gort- 
schakoff,  who  was  mainly  responsible  for  the  ill  feeling, 
was  allowed  to  slip  quietly  out  of  office.  His  ambition 
for  many  years  had  evidently  been  to  pose  before  the 
world  as  combining  the  qualities  of  the  Prince  de  Ligne 
and  of  Metternich:  a  critic  has  described  him  as  "a 
Narcissus  who  loved  to  admire  himself  as  mirrored  in 
his  inkstand. ' ' 1  A  very  different  man  was  now  put  in 
the  Eussian  foreign  office,  De  Giers,  a  man  of  business 
who  loved  peace  not  merely  platonically  but  with  passion, 
who  was  especially  anxious  to  secure  proper  relations 
with  Germany,  and  who  was  never  so  eloquent  as  when 
contrasting  the  gains  of  Eussia  by  peace  with  her  losses 
by  war.  No  more  touching  scene  was  presented  in  the 
last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century  than  this  patriot 
minister  evidently  drawing  near  death,  but  using  what 
remained  of  his  strength  in  advocating  a  change  from  the 
old,  haughty  Eussian  war  policy.2 

And  now,  although  the  treaties  which  bound  together 
Germany,  Austria,  and  Italy  in  the  Triple  Alliance  against 
any  attack  by  Eussia  and  France  were  still  in  force,  the 
Emperors  of  Germany,  Austria,  and  Eussia  were  again 
brought  together,  skillfully  wrought  upon  by  the  great 
Chancellor,  and  as  a  result  there  was  secretly  devised  a 
supplementary  system  of  diplomatic  wheels  within  wheels, 
so  arranged  that,  if  France  attacked  Germany,  she  would 
find  herself  isolated  from  Eussia  and  opposed  by  Ger- 
many, Austria,  and  Italy;  that,  if  Germany  were  spe- 
cially provoked  into  war  with  France,  France  was  not  to 
receive  Eussian  assistance ;  that,  if  Eussia  attacked  Aus- 
tria, Austria  would  receive  German  and  Italian  support ; 
but  that,  if  any  difficulties  between  Eussia  and  Austria 
should  arise  on  the  Eastern  question,  not  from  Eussian 

1  "C'est  un  Nareisse  qui  se  mire  dans  son  encrier." 

2  For  an  account  of  some  of  these  conversations  between  the  dying 
minister  and  his  visitors,  see  A.  D.  White,  Autobiography,  vol.  ii,  p.  32. 


BISMARCK  479 

aggression,  Germany  would  not  intervene  and  Austria 
would  be  left  to  herself  in  coming  to  terms  with  Eussia. 

The  great  Chancellor's  hand  was  also  felt  outside  of 
Europe.  Very  gorgeous  in  the  north  of  Africa  had  been 
the  career  of  Ismail  Pasha,  the  Egyptian  Khedive.  Im- 
pressed by  the  opening  of  the  Suez  Canal,  realizing  the 
commercial  possibilities  of  his  domain  as  few  Turkish 
or  Egyptian  statesmen  had  ever  done,  borrowing  reck- 
lessly from  all  who  would  lend,  pledging  anything  and 
everything,  he  had  shaken  off  the  gyves  of  his  Turkish 
suzerain  and  had  made  a  display  which  dazzled  the 
world.  His  ambition  finally  rose  even  beyond  the  re- 
straints of  commercial  honesty  or  international  law. 
First  to  attack  him  effectively  was  Bismarck,  whose  pro- 
test led  in  1879  to  Ismail's  downfall  and  made  possible  a 
new  government  under  British  control,  which  still  re- 
mains the  best  that  Egypt  has  known  in  all  her  thou- 
sands of  years. 

Significant  of  much  was  it  that,  in  the  complications 
Tesulting  from  this  change  in  Egypt,  no  less  renowned  a 
statesman  than  Gladstone  sought  Bismarck's  counsel 
and  advice:  had  he  taken  it,  he  would  have  been  spared 
one  of  the  two  great  humiliations  of  his  life. 

The  will  of  the  Chancellor  was  also  asserted  in  an- 
other part  of  Africa  and  in  a  part  of  Europe  which,  up 
to  this  time,  had  thought  itself  far  outside  his  range, — 
even  in  Great  Britain.  The  partition  of  the  African 
Continent  between  various  European  powers  had  en- 
tered a  phase  new  and  vigorous,  and  between  Portugal 
and  Great  Britain  had  been  made  an  arrangement  to 
control  by  treaty  vast  regions  of  West  Africa, — espe- 
cially those  penetrated  by  the  Niger  and  Congo  rivers. 
Up  to  that  time  no  human  being  would  have  dreamed 
that  such  a  scheme  had  need  of  sanction  by  the  powers 
controlling  Continental  Europe;  but  a  new  epoch  had 
come  and  Bismarck  was  its  prophet.     Making  proclama- 


480  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

tion  that  the  world  could  no  longer  be  thus  seized  and 
partitioned,  he  put  the  Congo  Treaty  beneath  his  feet. 
To  this  proclamation  and  action  Great  Britain  modestly 
assented,  and  in  them  the  other  powers,  including  France, 
heartily  concurred.  Lord  Odo  Russell,  British  ambas- 
sador at  Berlin,  most  moderate  and  trusty  of  counsel- 
lors, wrote  Lord  Granville,  the  British  Secretary  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  regarding  Bismarck:  "At  St.  Peters- 
burg his  word  is  gospel,  as  well  as  at  Paris  and  Eome, 
where  his  sayings  inspire  respect  and  his  silence  appre- 
hension"; the  German  ambassador  Hatzfeldt  boasted 
that  Bismarck  carried  the  Sultan  in  his  pocket;  the 
French  Consul,  M.  de  Courcel,  having  made  a  pilgrim- 
age to  the  country  seat  of  the  German  Chancellor,  an- 
nounced that  between  Germany  and  France  there  was 
"perfect  identity  of  views."  x 

As  a  result  of  this  condition  of  things  the  main  Euro- 
pean powers  and  the  United  States  were  early  in  1885 
invited  to  send  delegates  to  a  council  upon  African 
affairs  at  Berlin;  and  there,  in  the  Chancellor's  palace, 
during  more  than  three  months,  the  questions  concerned 
were  discussed,  until  finally  there  was  made  in  Africa  a 
new  and  broad  partition  of  territories  and  spheres  of 
influence — the  German  scepter  being  now  extended  over 
African  realms  of  vast  extent  and  possibilities. 

It  was  in  this  matter  that  Bismarck  showed  most 
clearly  his  grasp  of  world  politics.  In  his  early  utter- 
ances he  had  opposed  German  colonial  aspirations,  had 
even  ridiculed  them;  but  after  the  establishment  of  the 
Empire  and  the  creation  of  a  fleet  his  feeling  changed. 
He  had  always  regretted  that  the  great  surplus  popula- 
tion of  Germany  passed,  year  after  year,  in  larger  and 

i  For  interesting  details  regarding  the  change  wrought  by  Bismarck 
in  the  dealings  of  Great  Britain  with  African  questions,  see  Lord  E. 
Fitzmaurice,  Life  of  the  Second  Earl  Granville,  vol.  ii,  chap,  x,  and  else- 
where. 


BISMARCK  481 

larger  numbers,  under  foreign  allegiance,  and,  brooding 
over  this,  he  developed  a  wish  for  colonies  which  might 
retain  some  part  of  this  population  beneath  the  German 
flag. 

His  efforts  to  this  end  met  at  first  with  strong  resist- 
ance: his  proposals  to  develop  colonies  at  Samoa  and 
elsewhere  and  to  subsidize  steamer  lines  to  the  far  East 
were  thwarted  in  the  German  Diet.  But  opposition  only 
increased  his  force,  and  a  compromise  by  which  he  ob- 
tained in  1885  a  subsidy  of  four  millions  of  marks  a 
year,  for  fifteen  years,  toward  steamer  lines  to  Asia, 
Africa,  and  Australia,  laid  the  foundations  for  new 
extensions  of  German  commerce. 

And  there  was  another  opposition  which  even  more 
deeply  stirred  his  passion  and  drew  forth  his  skill. 
Closely  connected  with  "the  scramble  for  Africa"  was 
the  scramble  for  new  territories  in  the  Pacific  Islands, 
and,  in  his  efforts  to  protect  German  settlers  and  to 
secure  to  Germany  the  proper  control  over  them  in  both 
regions,  he  met  opposition,  sometimes  brutal,  sometimes 
subtle,  which  he  speedily  traced  back  to  the  Cabinet  of 
Great  Britain.  His  tactics  now  became  interesting. 
Along  the  African  coasts  and  through  the  Pacific  Islands 
he  pushed  emissaries  who  soon  planted  the  German  flag 
over  regions  widely  separated, — many  of  them  desirable. 
The  British  government  evidently  sought  to  delay  his 
projects,  to  tangle  them,  to  erect  barriers  against  them. 
All  to  no  purpose :  he  cut  through  the  entanglements  and 
broke  down  the  barriers.  Eevealing  to  the  German  Diet 
this  foreign  opposition  to  his  policy,  he  gained  strong 
support  in  the  country  at  large  and  a  majority  in  the 
Parliament  which  enabled  him  to  maintain  the  German 
flag  over  the  regions  where  he  had  placed  it, — Lord 
Granville  in  the  British  Upper  House  and  Mr.  Gladstone 
in  the  House  of  Commons  accepting  the  situation  with  an 
effusion  of  sweet  reasonableness  and  an  edifying  recog- 
31 


482  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

nition  of  Germany  as  a  partner  with  Great  Britain  in 
carrying  out  the  good  intentions  of  Providence  toward 
the  heathen. 

Characteristic  of  Bismarck  was  it  that  his  sympathy 
was  not  won  by  these  utterances  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  His 
antipathy  to  the  British  Prime  Minister  seemed  thereby 
increased.  GortschakofT  had  given  to  a  portrait  of  Glad- 
stone a  place  of  honor  in  his  official  residence  at  St. 
Petersburg,  but  the  favorite  English  portrait  at  the 
Chancellor's  palace  at  Berlin  was  that  of  Disraeli;  point- 
ing toward  it,  Bismarck  was  wont  to  say,  ' '  The  old  Jew : 
he  is  the  man."  Probably  the  most  severe  criticism  ever 
passed  upon  Gladstone, — that  which  sped  farthest  and 
struck  deepest, — was  a  reference,  in  one  of  Bismarck's 
speeches,  to  the  injury  and  discredit  the  English  Prime 
Minister  had  brought,  by  his  foreign  policy,  upon  British 
interests  and  the  British  name. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  during  this  struggle  and 
others  Bismarck  showed  the  defects  of  his  qualities.  One 
dispatch  to  Count  Minister,  German  ambassador  at  Lon- 
don, regarding  the  colonial  aspirations  of  Germany  and 
the  methods  by  which  she  was  willing  to  secure  them, 
was  so  cynical  that  the  ambassador  suppressed  it  and 
the  result  was  a  comedy  of  errors — the  German  Chan- 
cellor acting  upon  the  supposition  that  the  British  gov- 
ernment had  seen  the  dispatch,  and  the  British  Prime 
Minister  acting  without  knowledge  of  it. 

Even  the  United  States  was  subjected  to  his  displeas- 
ure. From  the  very  beginning  of  his  career  he  had 
treated  Americans  with  especial  kindness.  His  relations 
with  Motley  during  his  university  days,  with  Bancroft 
during  the  formation  of  the  German  Federation  and  Em- 
pire, with  Sheridan,  Burnside,  and  the  American  officers 
whom  he  met  at  Versailles  during  the  siege  of  Paris,  and 
with  a  long  succession  of  American  ministers  at  the 
Court  of  Berlin,  gave  ample  evidence  of  this  feeling. 


BISMARCK  483 

But  suddenly  all  was  changed :  in  an  evil  hour  an  Amer- 
ican minister,  a  former  Senator  of  the  United  States, 
wrote  from  Berlin  a  confidential  letter  to  a  high  official 
of  his  government  asserting  that  the  Chancellor,  having 
become  a  great  landed  proprietor,  was  naturally  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  landowning  class  in  Germany  and  that 
it  was,  therefore,  vain  to  hope  for  any  lowering  of  Ger- 
man duties  on  foreign  products  of  agriculture  during  his 
continuance  in  office.  By  some  carelessness  this  letter 
became  public,  with  the  result  that  Bismarck's  prejudice 
against  the  offending  diplomat  became  bitter. 

Closely  connected  with  this  was  another  exhibition  of 
his  determination  that  his  policy  should  not  be  ques- 
tioned. One  of  the  most  eminent  parliamentarians  dur- 
ing the  formation  period  of  Germany  was  Edward 
Lasker.  He  was  an  accepted  leader  of  the  National  Lib- 
eral party ;  in  his  unselfish  devotion  to  liberal  principles,, 
in  his  ability  to  sway  thinking  men,  and  in  his  influence 
over  liberal-minded  men  throughout  the  Empire  he  was 
one  of  the  foremost  statesmen  of  his  time.  At  the  first 
elections  to  the  Imperial  Parliament  he  had  been  chosen 
by  half  a  dozen  districts,  and  in  the  Prussian  Parliament 
he  represented  the  important  constituency  of  Frankfort- 
on-Main.  As  a  jurist,  publicist,  and  debater,  he  stood 
among  the  foremost;  his  integrity  was  unimpeachable; 
he  had  won  a  victory  over  financial  misdoing  on  a  large 
scale,  by  which  he  had  driven  a  finance  minister  out  of 
office,  and  he  had  dared  to  attack  the  business  enterprises 
of  one  of  the  proudest  princes  of  the  Empire.  He  had 
been,  in  various  exigencies,  one  of  Bismarck's  most  im- 
portant supporters  and  notably  one  of  his  main  aids  in 
reforming  German  jurisprudence;  but  sundry  other 
measures,  dear  to  the  Chancellor's  heart,  he  opposed; 
he  could  not  be  reckoned  on  for  thick  and  thin  support, 
and  Bismarck's  antipathy  toward  him  became  passionate. 

To  the  opening  of  the  Northern  Pacific  railway  across 


484  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

the  United  States  there  came  many  eminent  guests  from 
Germany,  and  Lasker  among  them;  but,  returning  from 
the  excursion  to  the  Pacific — worn  with  fatigue  and 
excited  by  the  novel  scenes  about  him — he  suddenly  fell 
dead  in  a  New  York  street. 

Deep  regret  was  at  once  shown  on  both  sides  the  At- 
lantic, and  in  perfect  good  faith  a  resolution  of  sym- 
pathy with  Germany  in  her  great  loss  was  immediately 
passed  by  the  American  House  of  Representatives  and 
sent  through  the  official  channel  to  the  German  govern- 
ment. It  was  taken  for  granted  that  such  a  tribute  would 
tend  to  produce  kindly  feeling  between  the  two  nations ; 
but,  to  the  amazement  of  all  concerned,  the  Chancellor 
confiscated  this  resolution,  cynically  withheld  it  from  the 
Diet,  and  returned  it  to  America  by  the  speediest  chan- 
nel, with  a  verbal  message  more  curt  than  polite — its 
significance  being,  "Mind  your  own  business !" 

Nor  was  this  all:  Bismarck's  wrath  now  fell,  very 
illogically,  on  the  American  plenipotentiary  and  drove 
him  to  resign.  It  may  here  be  chronicled  to  the  honor 
of  our  country,  that,  while  its  President  immediately 
offered  promotion  to  our  minister,  its  Congress,  recog- 
nizing in  Bismarck's  conduct  simply  the  weakness  of  a 
strong  man,  allowed  the  whole  matter  to  be  forgotten. 

In  the  new  relations  of  the  Empire  with  distant  regions, 
Bismarck  gave  constant  evidence  of  his  promptness  and 
vigor.  He  had  steadily  enlarged  the  fleet  and  he  now 
used  it — sending  armed  vessels  to  collect  debts  in  South 
America,  to  secure  indemnity  for  injury  from  pirates 
in  China,  to  protect  Christians  in  Syria,  to  keep  the  peace 
in  Greek  waters,  to  secure  apologies  for  an  insult  to  a 
German  Consul  in  Central  America,  to  aid  in  destroying 
the  slave  trade  in  Africa,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  to  avenge 
murders  of  Germans  in  Turkey  and  Spain. 

Very  characteristic  of  his  foresight  in  paving  the  way 
for  German  commerce  and  of  his  determination  to  keep 


BISMARCK  485 

in  touch  with  colonial  needs  and  aspirations  was  it  that, 
under  his  lead,  the  Diet  now  appropriated  fifty  thousand 
dollars  a  year  for  university  instruction  in  six  of  the 
more  important  living  languages  of  Asia. 

It  would  seem  that  in  efforts  like  these,  having  the 
whole  world  within  their  scope,  he  would  have  found  full 
play  for  all  his  energies.  Not  so.  Even  more  deter- 
mined were  his  exertions  to  carry  out  his  policy  within 
the  Empire.  This  policy  was  mainly  twofold — both  its 
parts,  as  he  considered,  necessary  to  the  existence  of  the 
state :  one  part  touching  ecclesiastical  and  the  other  civil 
and  economic  questions. 

As  to  the  first  of  these,  even  at  the  time  when  he  was 
carrying  on  his  foreign  policy  with  such  breadth  and 
daring,  and  his  internal  policy  with  a  skill  and  vigor 
never  before  known  in  Germany,  he  was  waging  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  civil  wars  in  modern  history.  While 
establishing  the  Empire  he  had  recognized  in  the  power 
centered  at  the  Vatican  a  most  subtle  enemy  of  his  coun- 
try. In  the  "Syllabus"  issued  by  Pius  IX  in  December, 
186-4,  he  saw  a  condemnation  of  the  best  ideas  which 
Germany  had  gained  during  the  progress  of  her  civiliza- 
tion, and  especially  a  blow  at  that  unfettered  search 
for  truth  which  was  the  proudest  conquest  of  German 
thought.  His  main  warning  of  this  peril  had  come  from 
the  great  Catholic  patriot  and  statesman  of  South  Ger- 
many, Prince  Chlodwig  Hohenlohe,  who  foresaw  in  the 
approaching  council  at  the  Vatican  the  assertion  of  papal 
infallibility,  and  in  this  assertion  a  plan  for  the  sub- 
jugation of  civil  authority.  Of  this  he  warned  Europe, 
and  Bismarck  gave  heed  to  the  warning.  During  the 
wars  against  Austria  and  France  he  had  learned  how 
bitter  and  deep  was  the  opposition  of  the  Vatican  to 
German  aspirations,  and  he  noted  as  significant  the  fact 
that  the  solemn  declaration  of  the  infallibility  dogma 
was  followed,  but  one  day  later,  by  the  declaration  of 


486  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

war  by  France  against  Germany.  The  matter  was 
serious,  indeed;  for  one-third  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
new  German  Empire  belonged  to  the  Roman  branch  of 
the  Christian  church,  and  the  question,  as  it  shaped  itself 
in  Bismarck's  mind,  was  this:  "Is  this  great  body — one- 
third  of  the  entire  German  population — to  obey,  in  civil 
matters,  laws  made  by  the  German  Parliament  or  man- 
dates issued  by  a  knot  of  Italian  priests?" 

The  championship  of  this  latter  view  was  speedily 
extended  from  the  Vatican  to  the  bishops,  and  from  the 
bishops  to  their  lower  clergy  and  laity.  From  their  pul- 
pits came  denunciations  of  a  kind  usually  heard  from 
political  platforms,  and  in  the  Parliament  there  now 
appeared  a  "centre  party,"  devoted  to  the  interests  of 
the  Vatican,  with  strong  leaders,  and,  at  their  head,  their 
most  formidable  statesman,  Windthorst.  He  had  been 
a  fellow  student  of  Bismarck  at  Gottingen,  but,  unlike 
Bismarck,  had  given  himself  quietly  and  steadily  to  uni- 
versity work,  plodding,  untiring,  with  no  aid  from  pow- 
erful family  connections  or  high  social  position,  and  by 
force  of  native  ability  and  hard  work  had  risen  to  leader- 
ship in  the  kingdom  of  Hanover.  The  incorporation  of 
Hanover  into  Prussia  during  the  war  of  1866  had  de- 
prived him  of  his  commanding  place  in  the  Hanoverian 
cabinet,  and  he  had  now  come  into  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment as  simply  a  provincial  member.  His  ambition  and 
his  hatred  of  the  new  order  of  things  combined  with  his 
great  powers  as  a  parliamentary  leader  to  make  him 
formidable.  Probably  no  more  singular  parliamentary 
picture  was  seen  during  the  nineteenth  century  than  the 
great  Chancellor,  immense  in  size,  commanding  in  move- 
ment, seated  near  the  Tribune  of  the  German  Diet, — and 
near  him,  in  the  Tribune  itself,  this  most  determined 
opponent,  dwarfish,  unprepossessing  in  face  and  voice, 
apparently  insignificant,  yet  the  most  serious  enemy 
which  the  new  imperial  ideas  ever  encountered. 


BISMARCK  487 

In  the  combats  which  followed,  Bismarck  at  first  ex- 
erted himself  to  keep  within  bounds,  and,  though  from 
time  to  time  he  struck  heavy  blows,  he  showed  frequently 
an  inclination  toward  mild  measures  which  surprised 
those  who  had  watched  his  previous  career.  The  strug- 
gle had  been  greatly  embittered  by  the  efforts  of  sundry 
ecclesiastics  of  the  older  church  to  drive  out  of  pulpits 
and  professors'  chairs  all  those  who  had  not  accepted  the 
infallibility  dogma ;  and,  as  the  men  thus  ostracized  were 
salaried  by  the  state,  there  came  resistance  by  the  civil 
authorities  and  this  led  to  a  violence  in  preaching  which 
caused  the  enactment  of  the  "Pulpit  Laws." 

Now  came  a  colossal  blunder  on  both  sides.  Bismarck, 
apt  as  he  was  in  quoting  homely  German  proverbs,  forgot 
a  favorite  one  just  suited  to  this  emergency — "Nothing 
is  eaten  so  hot  as  it  is  cooked."  This  forgetfulness 
led  to  a  sea  of  troubles  in  which  both  parties  floundered 
long  and  evilly.  The  supposition  that  the  infallibility 
dogma  could  be  carried  to  its  logical  results  in  temporal 
affairs  blinded  both  parties.  A  long  struggle  resulted, 
into  which  were  drawn  sundry  high  ecclesiastics,  notably 
the  Bishops  of  Ermeland  and  Paderborn  and  the  Arch- 
bishops of  Cologne  and  Posen.  Soon,  too,  there  appeared 
in  the  troubled  waters  the  Jesuits :  they  had  been  active 
against  Germany  in  her  Austrian  and  French  wars,  stir- 
ring up  not  only  religious  differences  but  racial  and  pro- 
vincial hates,  notably  in  Poland  and  in  Alsace-Lorraine, 
and  now  they  redoubled  their  efforts.  To  meet  the 
emergency  Bismarck  at  first  tried  a  combination  of 
strength  with  mildness :  on  one  hand  appointing  to  the 
ministry  of  public  worship  the  strongest  man  who  ever 
held  that  position,  Falk ;  on  the  other  hand  paying  a  nom- 
inal compliment  to  the  Pope  by  proposing  to  send  as 
ambassador  to  Borne  no  less  a  personage  than  Cardinal 
Hoheulohe,  a  younger  scion  of  a  house  which  was  once  a 
sovereign  dynasty  and  which  was  still  one  of  the  great 


488  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

families  of  Germany.  But,  this  courtesy  being  rejected 
at  the  Vatican,  matters  became  worse,  and  in  1872  the 
whole  body  of  Jesuits  were  expelled  from  the  kingdom. 
This  was  all  the  more  significant  for  the  reason  that  the 
Jesuit  order,  from  the  days  of  Frederick  the  Great,  even 
during  the  period  when  it  had  been  expelled  from  all  the 
Catholic  countries  of  Europe  and  from  Kome  by  the  Pope 
himself,  had  been  protected  throughout  the  Prussian 
dominions.  This  expulsion  was  speedily  followed  on  the 
other  side  by  ecclesiastical  denunciations  of  Bismarck 
and  even  by  a  solemn  prophecy  from  Pope  Pius  that  the 
vengeance  of  the  Almighty  would  speedily  overtake  him. 
Reprisals  were  henceforth  in  order:  the  German  diplo- 
matic representative  was  withdrawn  from  the  Vatican 
and  there  were  passed  what  were  known  as  tjie  "Falk 
Laws,"  or  "May  Laws,"  which,  with  sundry  supplemen- 
tary enactments,  were  intended  to  put  a  curb  on  ecclesi- 
astical encroachments  throughout  Prussia,  and,  indeed, 
indirectly  throughout  the  Empire.  The  leading  purposes 
of  these  laws  were  mainly  four.  First:  to  prevent  the 
exercise  of  ecclesiastical  power  for  civil  or  social  oppres- 
sion ;  the  principle  laid  down  being  that  involved  in  pro- 
ceedings against  those  guilty  of  libel  and  slander.  Sec- 
ondly: to  secure  a  better,  broader,  and  more  patriotic 
education  for  the  clergy  by  insisting  that,  as  they  were 
salaried  by  the  state,  the  whole  of  their  education  should 
not  be  taken  in  a  succession  of  sectarian  schools,  primary, 
secondary,  advanced,  and  finally  theological — all,  from 
first  to  last,  entirely  under  the  management  of  the  priest- 
hood and  segregated  completely  from  the  world  at  large 
— but  that  a  part  of  it,  at  least,  should  be  more  open  to 
the  world  and  should  be  taken  at  some  one  of  the  gym- 
nasia or  universities.  Thirdly:  to  secure  to  every  person 
the  right  of  separating  himself  from  any  church,  Cath- 
olic, Protestant,  Jewish,  or  other,  by  declaring  his  inten- 
tion before  a  judge  and  with  security  for  himself  and  his 


BISMARCK  489 

family  from  any  resultant  degradation  or  stigma  injuri- 
ous to  them  as  citizens.  Fourthly :  that  the  state  might 
protect  itself  from  zealots  casting  firebrands  and  arrows, 
— that,  to  this  end,  whenever  the  Church  authorities  were 
about  to  fill  ecclesiastical  vacancies,  they  should  send  to 
the  civil  authorities  the  candidates'  names,  and  that,  for 
the  validity  of  such  appointments,  there  should  be  con- 
firmation by  the  civil  authorities.  Finally,  it  was  required 
that,  while  a  religious  ceremony  at  marriages  was  not 
only  permitted  but  encouraged,  there  must  necessarily  be 
a  civil  ceremony  requiring  state  legislation  and  control. 
Most  of  these  principles  had  been  allowed  by  the  Vatican 
in  various  other  nations,  but  their  assertion  at  this  time  in 
Germany  vastly  embittered  the  contest;  the  struggle 
in  its  worst  phase  lasted  more  than  five  years  and  each 
of  its  stages  showed  some  new  phase  of  unreason. 

On  the  clerical  side  came  new  anathemas  against  those 
who  had  refused  to  accept  the  infallibility  dogma,  more  and 
more  stirring  of  racial  hates  in  Poland  and  Alsace-Lor- 
raine, of  provincial  jealousies  in  Bavaria  and  the  Rhine 
provinces,  and  of  sectarian  fanaticism  everywhere.  On 
the  government  side  came  more  and  more  expulsions  of 
priests  from  their  pulpits,  of  professors  from  their  chairs, 
of  high  ecclesiastics  from  bishoprics,  with  fines  and  im- 
prisonments scattered  widely ;  and,  as  a  rule,  all  religious 
orders  not  specially  devoted  to  charity  were  driven  from 
the  kingdom.  As  the  combat  deepened,  bishops  and  arch- 
bishops, for  contravening  the  laws,  were  thrown  into 
prison, — the  Archbishop  of  Posen,  Ledochowsky,  for 
more  than  two  years.  Fanaticism  was  now  at  the  boil- 
ing point,  and  in  evidence  of  it  there  came,  not  only  in 
Germany  but  in  the  surrounding  countries,  threats  and 
plans  to  assassinate  the  Chancellor, — one  of  these  very 
nearly  succeeding.  A  youth  named  Kullman,  who  had 
been  for  a  time  in  a  clerical  school,  fired  upon  Bismarck 
on  the  promenade  at  Kissingen  and  came  so  near  sue- 


490  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

cess  that  the  bullet  narrowly  missed  an  artery — grazing 
the  Prince's  hand  just  at  the  moment  when  it  was  lifted 
to  his  forehead  in  the  act  of  returning  a  salute.  This 
act  led  to  new  severities  by  the  civil  authorities:  the 
appropriation  for  the  German  legation  at  the  Vatican 
was  stricken  out  of  the  estimates,  sundry  Catholic  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  were  arrested,  and  civil  marriage 
laws  were  extended  over  the  Empire. 

In  February,  1875,  Pope  Pius  having  issued  another 
encyclical,  declaring  the  detested  laws  void  and  their 
makers  godless,  the  contest  entered  an  even  more  acrid 
phase,  among  its  curious  results  being  an  increase  in 
German  pilgrimages  to  Lourdes,  the  very  seat  and  centre 
of  French  hatred  for  Germany,  and,  in  Germany  itself, 
miracles  at  Marpingen, — supposed  to  indicate  disap- 
proval of  Bismarck  by  the  Almighty.  Throughout  all 
this  period,  the  centre  party,  numbering  one-fourth  of 
the  Parliament  and  led  by  Windthorst,  fought  indiscrim- 
inately all  Bismarck's  measures,  of  every  sort,  no  matter 
how  far  removed  from  religious  interests. 

But  in  1878  Pius  IX  died,  and  in  his  place  was  seated 
a  man  who,  if  less  engaging,  was  much  more  gifted  in 
breadth  of  statesmanship  and  in  clearness  of  political 
vision:  Leo  XIII, — the  greatest  Pontiff  since  Benedict 
XIV.  Both  Bismarck  and  the  new  Pope  now  recognized 
their  opportunity,  and  soon  efforts  were  evident  for  com- 
promise. Either  side  continued  to  show  spasms  of  re- 
sentment at  times,  during  which  loud  declarations  evi- 
dently intended  for  European  effect  were  made;  but 
finally  Bismarck,  having  conferred  with  Windthorst  at 
Berlin,  and  with  the  papal  representative,  Jacobini,  at 
Gastein,  began  more  fruitful  work, — the  basis  as  laid 
down  by  the  Chancellor  being  the  understanding  that, 
while  the  German  government  must  remain  firm  in  its  as- 
sertion of  the  principles  involved,  their  application  could 
be  made  more  mild  and  dispensations  could  be  granted. 


BISMARCK  491 

On  the  other  side,  in  1880,  a  letter  of  Pope  Leo  to  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Cologne  intimated  a  willingness  that  the  nomi- 
nations to  vacant  ecclesiastical  positions  be  communicated 
to  the  Prussian  civil  authorities  beforehand.  This  to 
Bismarck  was  an  especially  important  point,  and  from 
this  germ  an  agreement  was  gradually  developed.  It 
was  felt  on  both  sides  that  it  was  high  time  for  the  strug- 
gle to  close.  Thus  far  the  religious  interests  of  the  peo- 
ple at  large  seemed  to  be  forgotten  by  both  parties.  Eight 
out  of  the  twelve  Prussian  dioceses  were  without  bishops, 
and  more  than  four  hundred  parishes  were  without  pas- 
tors. The  Prince  Bishop  of  Breslau  had  fled  to  Austria, 
Cardinal  Ledochowski  had  taken  refuge  in  Eome,  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Cologne  was  wandering  in  disguise  in  Ger- 
many or  concealed  in  Holland.  The  whole  world  was 
beginning  to  be  scandalized  at  a  conflict  in  which,  mainly 
for  questions  involving  the  pride  of  the  Vatican  on  one 
side  and  of  the  Chancellor's  office  on  the  other,  so  great 
a  proportion  of  the  humble,  confiding  Christian  flock  were 
left  without  shepherds.  Evidences  of  a  compromising 
spirit  now  increased:  a  new  minister,  Schlozer,  who,  as 
a  confidant  of  Bismarck,  had  previously  shown  shrewd- 
ness and  tact  at  Washington,  was  now  transferred  to  the 
Vatican;  the  government  was  given  more  discretion  in 
administering  the  Falk  Laws ;  Falk  himself,  having  been 
loaded  with  honors,  gave  place  to  a  man  less  obnoxious ; 
the  special  dispensing  power  of  the  King  in  relation  to 
the  laws  was  extended;  and  finally  the  Crown  Prince, 
returning  from  Spain  and  visiting  Pope  Leo,  was  gladly 
received,  and,  of  all  surprises,  his  Holiness  requested — 
Bismarck's  portrait.  This  request  was  speedily  granted, 
and  the  Chancellor  himself,  not  to  be  outdone  by  the  Vat- 
ican, extended  to  Pope  Leo  a  courtesy  which  he,  of  all 
men,  would  appreciate, — by  asking  him  to  act  as  umpire 
between  Germany  and  Spain  regarding  the  claims  of  the 
two  nations  to  the  Caroline  Islands.     Meantime,  from  the 


492  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Vatican  on  one  side  and  from  the  Chancellor's  palace  on 
the  other  came  a  succession  of  measures  attenuating  the 
severe  laws  and  orders  made  on  both  sides,  until  the 
spectacle  was  presented  of  Bismarck  relying  on  the  Ger- 
man Catholic  party's  support  for  the  main  measures  of 
his  new  financial  and  economical  policy.  The  worst  of  the 
struggle  was  now  over,  and  a  modus  vivendi  was  estab- 
lished. The  Pope  and  the  Chancellor  were  great  enough 
to  understand  and  appreciate  each  other;  not  only  was 
Bismarck's  portrait  sent  to  the  Vatican,  but  Pope  Leo's 
portrait  was  sent  to  Varzin;  denunciations  and  threats 
ceased,  and  Bismarck  was  enabled  to  concentrate  his 
attention  on  the  civil  measures  which  he  had  been  for 
some  time  bringing  before  the  German  Parliament. 

For,  knit  into  Bismarck's  foreign  policy  and  into  the 
struggle  with  the  Vatican  was  a  domestic  policy  soon  to 
attract  the  attention  of  the  whole  world.  As  far  back 
as  the  opening  of  the  first  Imperial  Parliament  he  had 
begun  heroic  endeavors  to  consolidate  the  realm  which  he 
had  summoned  into  existence.  This  labor  proved  to  be 
enormous;  for  the  old  centrifugal  forces — local  preju- 
dices, state  rights'  theories,  racial  hates — continued  and 
must  be  dealt  with  both  energetically  and  tactfully.  Be- 
sides this  the  newly  annexed  region  of  Alsace-Lorraine, 
with  its  million  and  a  half  of  inhabitants,  mainly  German 
in  descent,  but  French  in  sympathy,  also  developed  tend- 
encies and  practices  constantly  annoying  and  sometimes 
dangerous.  Against  this  new  peril  a  statesman  of  less 
breadth  and  depth  would  probably  have  used  threats  or 
cajoleries,  but  from  Bismarck  came  very  different  utter- 
ances :  for,  mindful  of  the  truth  that  tact  does  not  always 
consist  in  speaking  evasively,  he  announced  that  Alsace- 
Lorraine  had  been  taken  back  into  Germany,  not  for  the 
comfort  and  pleasure  of  its  people,  but  for  the  safety  of 
the  Empire.  On  reflection,  the  population  concerned  saw 
the  meaning  of  this  defiant  pronouncement,  and  they 


BISMARCK  493 

realized,  as  never  before,  that  the  decision  of  Germany  to 
retain  them  was  invincible.  Yet  a  policy  mild,  though 
far-seeing,  tempered  this  bluntness  of  speech.  Under 
Bismarck's  rule,  the  old  University  of  Strasburg,  which 
had  fallen  into  decay  since  the  days  when  Goethe  sat  on 
its  benches,  was  reestablished  on  a  splendid  scale,  thus 
becoming  inevitably  a  centre  of  living  German  thought; 
and  in  place  of  the  lower  schools,  poor  and  scattered,  con- 
ducted by  the  priesthood,  was  established  a  school  system 
like  that  which  had  done  so  much  for  Prussia.  Great  wis- 
dom was  also  shown  in  the  Chancellor's  election  of  vice- 
roys for  this  new  domain.  First  of  these  was  Manteuffel, 
who  during  the  war  period  had  won  high  eminence  as  a 
general,  and  who  now  distinguished  himself  no  less  as  a 
statesman — tempering  Prussian  rigidity  with  mild  wis- 
dom. No  less  happily  inspired  was  Bismarck  in  choosing 
Prince  Hohenlohe  as  Manteuffel 's  successor.  His  career 
as  Prime  Minister  in  Bavaria  and  as  Ambassador  to 
France  had  given  him  a  European  reputation,  but  that 
which  had  won  him  the  respect  of  all  thinking  Germany 
was  that  in  spite  of  his  ancestral  relations  with  Austria, 
the  states  of  the  South,  and  the  Vatican  he  had  remained 
faithful  to  his  early  patriotic  ideal  of  German  unity  under 
the  leadership  of  Prussia.  It  was  as  if  during  our  own 
Civil  War  some  preeminent  statesman  in  one  of  our 
Southern  States,  realizing  from  the  first  that  in  the  unity 
of  the  American  republic  is  rooted  all  hope  for  liberty 
on  the  Ajnerican  continent,  had  taken  his  stand  at  the 
side  of  Abraham  Lincoln, — had  steadily  asserted,  with 
Andrew  Jackson,  ' '  the  Federal  Union  must  and  shall  be 
preserved," — had  overcome  family  traditions,  personal 
attachments,  state  prejudices,  church  demands,  and  had 
adhered,  from  first  to  last,  to  the  Union  cause,  despite  all 
opposition  and  obloquy. 

The  policy  of  Hohenlohe,  somewhat  more  stern  than 
that  of  Manteuffel,  served  to  extinguish  all  hopes  for  a. 


494  SEVEN  GBEAT  STATESMEN 

return  of  the  provinces  to  French  sovereignty,  and  it  was 
a  natural  result  that  at  a  later  period  he  became  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Empire.  It  may  be  permitted  to  the  pres- 
ent writer  to  say  that,  having  been  thrown  into  official 
and  social  relations  with  this  statesman,  he  learned  to 
respect  him  for  his  patriotism,  his  equity,  his  mildness, 
and  his  ever-present  sense  of  justice.  Loyal,  too,  the 
Prince  always  remained  to  his  great  predecessor:  of  all 
men  of  that  period  with  whom  the  present  writer  has 
ever  spoken,  Hohenlohe  threw  the  clearest  and  fullest 
light  upon  Bismarck's  services  to  Germany  and  to  man- 
kind. 

While  the  great  Chancellor  thus  wrought  at  the  cir- 
cumference of  the  Empire,  his  power  was  no  less  evident 
at  its  centre.  The  five  milliards  transferred  to  Germany 
from  France  had  proved  a  disturbing  element ;  an  era  of 
wild  speculation  had  begun  and  ere  long  came  a  financial 
crash  which  seemed  to  shake  the  Empire  to  its  founda- 
tions. Worst  of  all,  sundry  men  in  high  office  at  Berlin 
had  been  tempted  into  abuses  of  public  confidence.  Strong 
defenders  of  right  now  arose,  and  Bismarck's  wisdom, 
regardless  of  party  ties,  allowed  justice  to  be  done,  even 
against  some  culprits  who  stood  very  near  him. 

Another  of  his  great  services  was  in  the  maintenance 
of  the  German  army,  and  in  this  he  stood  firm  against 
an  opposition  earnest  and  powerful.  He  saw  that  France 
on  one  side  and  Eussia  on  the  other  were  steadily  increas- 
ing their  armaments;  he  remembered  how  after  the  vic- 
tories of  Frederick  the  Great  a  slothful  optimism  had 
brought  the  nation  under  the  heel  of  Napoleon ;  he  knew 
that  Germany,  having  virtually  no  natural  frontiers,  must 
rely  on  the  skill  and  prowess  of  her  sons  against  powerful 
enemies  on  all  sides:  his  motto  therefore  was  not  ''Rest 
and  be  thankful";  he  saw  in  past  victories  a  reason  for 
putting  forth  new  energies.  In  the  debates  which  now 
arose  he  stood  firmly  by  the  side  of  Moltke,  the  greatest 


BISMARCK  495 

strategist  since  Napoleon,  who,  in  speeches  sententious 
but  weighty,  declared  that  the  provinces  won  in  half  a 
year  could  only  be  retained  by  military  exertions  extend- 
ing through  half  a  century.  Bismarck  was  ready  to  com- 
promise ou  minor  matters,  but  on  this  main  issue  he  was 
unyielding  and  finally  overcame  all  opposition.1 

During  this  epoch,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Chancel- 
lor, a  succession  of  reforms  was  initiated,  among  them 
new  codes  of  law  and  a  supreme  court  for  the  Empire. 
Very  vexatious  had  been  the  legal  confusion  existing  in 
the  new  Germany.  Petty  states,  and  indeed  petty  cities, 
had  their  own  codes  and  customs,  differing  from  each 
other  not  merely  in  outward  forms  but  often  in  their 
underlying  principles :  some  being  mainly  outgrowths  of 
feudalism,  some  of  Roman  Law,  and  some  strange  mix- 
tures of  both.  Now  were  set  at  work  jurists  of  the  first 
order,  and  in  1877  appeared  a  criminal  code  for  the  entire 
Empire,  in  1897  a  commercial  code,  and  in  1900  a  civil 
code. 

Noteworthy  is  it  that  in  a  minor  feature  of  this  legis- 
lation Bismarck  was  overruled:  he  had  wished  the  su- 
preme court  to  sit  at  the  capital,  but  the  Parliament,  yield- 
ing to  its  fear  of  over-centralization,  decided  that  it 
should  sit  at  Leipsic. 

Now  also  he  wrought  a  change  of  the  greatest  moment 
in  financial  administration.  From  the  first  day  of  the 
Empire  to  the  last  of  Bismarck's  continuance  in  office 
he  stood  as  the  champion  of  a  principle  which  was  finally 
knit  into  all  German  legislation, — that  of  the  financial 
independence  of  the  Empire.  Its  revenues  from  customs 
and  indirect  taxes  were  inadequate  and  its  deficits  could 
only  be  made  up  by  contributions  from  the  several  states. 

i  In  1880  the  present  writer  heard  Moltke  virtually  repeat  his  earlier 
argument  on  the  renewal  of  the  military  grant.  His  speech  was  made  in 
the  presence  of  Bismarck,  in  the  crowded  Parliament  House,  and  the 
sympathy  of  the  two  great  men  of  the  war  period  was  most  evident. 


496  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

In  this  system  he  justly  saw  danger,  for  it  afforded  enor- 
mous possibilities  of  nullifying  imperial  laws  by  local 
refusals  of  appropriations.  The  situation  was  essentially 
that  of  the  wretched  Confederation  which  preceded  the 
American  Union ;  therefore  it  was  that  he  was  now  drawn 
into  a  series  of  new  projects  which  mark  an  epoch  in  the 
economic  and  social  history  of  the  whole  world. 


AMONG  the  first  efforts  of  Bismarck  in  securing 
financial  independence  for  the  new  Empire  was  to 
obtain  for  it  the  ownership  of  all  railways  within  its 
borders.  But  here  a  majority  in  the  Diet  saw  danger. 
They  naturally  asked  what  control  the  legislative  body 
could  exert  over  an  administration  thus  gaining  an 
assured  income  of  hundreds  of  millions  a  year,  with 
appointment  and  control  of  myriads  of  railway  employes 
domiciled  in  every  part  of  the  Empire.  Moreover,  sundry 
large  states — notably  Saxony,  Wiirtemberg,  Bavaria, 
Baden — already  owned  their  railways,  and,  finding  power 
and  profit  in  the  management  of  them,  had  no  wish  to 
part  with  it.  Bismarck's  struggle  to  transfer  this  owner- 
ship to  the  imperial  government  was  long  and  earnest; 
but,  as  it  failed,  he  was  obliged  to  seek  new  sources  of 
imperial  revenue,  and  finally,  after  various  minor  com- 
promises and  adjustments,  he  found  them  largely  in  indi- 
rect taxation. 

The  railways  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  came  into  the 
possession  of  the  Empire,  but  as  a  rule  those  of  the  other 
states  remained  the  property  of  their  respective  govern- 
ments. Thence  came  great  power  to  the  various  local 
bureaucracies ;  but  it  is  especially  worthy  of  note  that  in 
Germany,  as  in  other  European  countries  where  state 
ownership  prevails,  the  only  great  through  railway  trains 
which  compare  in  efficiency  with  those  of  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States  are  equipped  and  managed,  under 
special  contracts,  by  private  companies — individual  ini- 
tiative thus  demonstrating  its  superiority.  It  is  also  to 
be  noted  that  the  prices  usually  charged  for  passage  and 

32  497 


498  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

freight  are  much  higher  in  Germany  than  those  of  the 
same  class  in  the  United  States. 

But,  though  Bismarck  thus  fell  short  of  his  main  aim, 
he  secured  more  fully  than  ever  before  cooperation 
throughout  the  whole  German  system  of  railways.  While 
he  could  not  secure  imperial  oivnership,  he  brought  all 
under  an  imperial  control  which  has  proved  a  great  ad- 
vantage. 

The  same  tendency  to  identify  the  new  Empire  with 
great  improvements  in  communication,  both  interior  and 
exterior,  was  seen  in  his  efforts  to  improve  and  increase 
the  internal  waterways  and  harbors  by  legislation  care- 
fully studied  and  steadily  pursued.1 

A  new  imperial  coinage  was  also  adopted.  Those  who 
knew  Germany  in  the  middle  period  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  among  them  the  present  writer,  have  vivid 
remembrances  of  the  former  circulating  medium:  Fred- 
erick Paulsen  tells  us  that  as  late  as  1860,  when  he 
arrived  as  a  student  at  the  University  of  Erlangen, 
though  he  had  only  made  the  journey  from  Hamburg,  he 
found  five  different  sorts  of  currency  in  his  pocket,  and 
he  adds  that  they  formed  "an  epitome  of  German 
misery."2  The  foreign  traveler  passing  in  those  days 
through  half  a  dozen  different  German  states  found,  as  a 
rule,  not  merely  as  many  different  coinages,  but  fre- 
quently two  or  three  coinages,  old  and  new,  in  each  state, 
each  of  these  with  its  own  discount — if  haply  it  was  good 
at  all.  Nothing  in  its  way  could  be  more  vexatious  or 
wasteful,  save  perhaps  the  paper  money  system  which 
prevailed  in  the  United  States  down  to  our  Civil  War. 

Eegarding  the  basis  of  the  new  imperial  coinage, 
though  Bismarck  consented  to  restrict  it  to  gold,  he 
retained  strong  leanings  toward  the  double  standard. 
The  present  writer  twice  heard  him  discuss  the  subject, — 


i  See  Matter,  as  above,  vol.  iii,  pp.  475-477. 
2  See  Paulsen,  Aus  Meinem  Lcben,  p.  138. 


BISMARCK  499 

once  in  public,  once  in  private, — and  it  was  clear  that  he 
was  dissatisfied  with  his  decision  and  would  have  re- 
versed it,  had  the  double  standard  obtained  the  sanction 
of  Great  Britain.1  In  the  form  of  the  new  coinage, 
windy  and  wordy  men  infesting  the  various  local  legis- 
latures, as  well  as  the  Imperial  Diet,  saw  opportunities 
for  party  metaphysics  and  began  to  raise  questions  as 
to  the  rights  of  the  Empire  and  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual states  to  stamp  the  coins — each  with  its  own 
arms  and  emblems ;  but  a  compromise  very  characteristic 
of  Bismarck  ended  all  this  oratory  at  once:  the  imperial 
arms  were  stamped  on  one  side  of  the  coins  and  the  head 
of  the  local  sovereign  on  the  other — it  was  like  Columbus 
and  the  egg. 

In  the  long  series  of  measures  which  he  brought  before 
Parliament,  Bismarck  from  time  to  time  met  with 
serious  defeats,  and  these,  acting  on  a  body  worn  and 
sick  and  sore,  galled  him.  Notably  was  this  the  case 
in  his  dealings  with  Socialism.  From  small  beginnings 
it  had  developed  rapidly,  a  most  important  force  in  its 
growth  being  the  excesses  of  reckless  promoters,  swindling 
stock  jobbers,  and  millionaire  Epicureans,  who  brought 
on  the  great  financial  crash  of  1873.  The  election  to  the 
first  German  Parliament,  in  1871,  showed  a  Socialist 
vote  of  about  one  hundred  thousand;  in  1893  it  had 
become  nearly  eighteen  hundred  thousand,  and  the  num- 
ber of  Socialist  deputies  had  increased  from  two  to  forty- 
two.  To  meet  this  tendency  Bismarck  proposed  severe 
repressive  measures,  which  Parliament,  insisting  that 
they  struck  at  the  right  of  free  speech  and  free  thought, 
refused  to  pass.  But  aid  came  to  him  from  the  anar- 
chists: in  the  spring  of  1878  were  made  two  desperate 
efforts  to  assassinate  the  Emperor — one  by  an  illiterate 
tinker,  and  the  other,  which  was  nearly  successful,  by  a 

i  This  was  made   clear  when  the  present   writer,  as  American  Minister 
at  Berlin,  brought  the  subject  before  the  German  government  in  1879. 


500  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

man  of  much  higher  acquirements.  This  aroused  Bis- 
marck's nagging  strength.  In  the  national  indignation 
awakened  by  these  outrages,  and  especially  by  the  second 
of  them,  he  saw  his  opportunity;  dissolved  Parliament; 
appealed  to  the  nation;  and  obtained  a  majority  which 
stood  by  him  in  legislation  suppressing  Socialist  meet- 
ings and  publications  with  great  energy,  made  numerous 
expulsions  of  individuals,  and  authorized  a  state  of  siege 
in  Berlin  and  other  great  cities. 

But  with  repression  of  outrages  went  redress  of  griev- 
ances— and  the  measures  which  Bismarck  now  proposed 
have  astonished  the  world  to  this  hour.  In  the  early 
days  of  his  political  activity,  although  he  had  accepted 
the  laissez-faire  theories  then  dominant,  he  had  occasion- 
ally suggested  state  care  for  men  worn  out  by  labor; 
but  his  suggestions  were  thought  mere  vagaries  and 
attracted  little  attention.  Later  he  had  been  attracted 
by  an  erratic  scholar  and  Epicurean  agitator,  Ferdinand 
Lassalle,  to  whose  discussions  of  social  problems  he  had 
listened  with  evident  interest.  These  discussions,  no 
doubt,  aroused  the  Chancellor's  curiosity,  even  if  they 
did  not  influence  his  reason ;  the  soil  was  ready  for  them ; 
throughout  his  whole  career  the  wish  to  strengthen  the 
Empire  which  he  had  created  grew  upon  him,  with  the 
result  that  the  old  laissez-faire  theory  became  to  him 
more  and  more  offensive  and  sundry  socialistic  argu- 
ments for  placing  vastly  more  power  in  the  hands  of  the 
central  government  more  and  more  plausible.  The  ideas 
of  Lassalle  and  his  successors  presupposed  the  centraliza- 
tion of  all  power  in  the  state:  the  government  becoming 
everything,  the  individual  nothing.  A  similar  order  of 
ideas,  coupled  with  the  desire  for  larger  imperial  rev- 
enues, changed  Bismarck  from  an  indifferent  free-trader 
to  a  convinced  protectionist  and  caused  him  to  propose 
the  legislation  which  finally  drove  from  him  his  earlier 


BISMARCK  501 

supporters  and  brought  Germany  under  a  high-tariff 
regime.1 

This  same  train  of  thought  finally  led  him  to  urge  the 
most  daring  socialistic  measure  which  had  then  been 
adopted  by  any  modern  nation, — compulsory  state  insur- 
ance for  workingnien.  There  were  in  this  system  three 
main  parts :  first,  compulsory  insurance  against  sickness, 
with  premiums  one-third  paid  by  the  employer  and  two- 
thirds  by  the  working-man — this  he  carried  through  in 
1883;  next,  compulsory  insurance  against  accidents, 
which  was  finally  extended  from  mines  and  factories  to 
every  trade,  the  whole  premium  being  paid  by  the  em- 
ployers— and  this  he  carried  through  in  1884;  finally  came 
old  age  pensions,  beginning  at  the  age  of  seventy — 
premiums  paid  partly  by  the  workingman  and  partly 
by  the  employer,  with  an  added  provision  by  the  state — 
this  was  accomplished  in  1889.  During  the  whole  course 
of  this  legislation  enormous  obstacles  confronted  him, 
greatest  of  all  these  being  the  opposition  of  those  who 
up  to  this  time  had  mainly  supported  him.  His  first  bill 
they  wrecked,  but  he  returned  to  the  charge,  and  to  meet 
his  new  needs  he  now  made  perhaps  the  most  striking 
change  in  the  whole  history  of  political  parties.  During 
the  period  of  the  Confederation  and  the  early  years  of 
the  Empire  he  had  been  supported  by  the  National  Lib- 
eral party,  composed  mainly  of  broad-minded  men  and 
containing  a  majority  of  the  foremost  thinkers  of  the 
Diet,  while  opposed  to  him  had  been  the  old  Conserva- 
tives and  the  Centre,  or  clerical  party,  which  had  steadily 
obeyed  the  Vatican. 

He  now  turned  from  those  who  had  supported  to  those 
who  had  opposed  him.  He  recognized  new  possibilities 
in  his  warfare.     Among  the  Conservatives  and  Centrists 

iA  brief  but  very  clear  statement  regarding  Bismarck's  opinion  of 
Lassalle  is  given  by  Keudell,  as  above,  pp.  161-163. 


502  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

were  leaders  both  of  the  landowning  and  manufacturing 
interests ;  and  he  determined  to  pay  a  price  which  would 
win  them.  Conciliating  Conservatives  by  severity  against 
the  Socialists,  and  winning  Clericals  by  mildness  toward 
the  Pope,  he  offered  to  both  parties  and  to  the  great  work- 
ing population  they  represented  a  regime  of  protection. 
The  offer  was  embraced,  and,  as  a  consequence,  came 
a  kaleidoscopic  change :  those  who  had  been  his  partisan 
enemies  now  mainly  standing  with  him,  and  those  who 
had  been  his  friends  mainly  against  him. 

At  times,  during  this  complicated  series  of  struggles 
in  Parliament  and  in  the  country  at  large,  vexed, 
thwarted,  disgusted,  and  suffering  the  bodily  ills  which 
beset  him,  he  had  threatened  to  leave  office,  and,  in  April, 
1877,  had  gone  so  far  as  to  lay  before  the  Emperor  a 
petition  asking  permission  to  resign.  On  this  petition 
the  Emperor  wrote  the  word  "Never,"  and  in  this  deci- 
sion the  nation,  as  a  whole,  heartily  acquiesced.  As  a 
compromise  the  weary  Chancellor  was  allowed  to  take  a 
nominal  vacation  at  his  country  seat,  but  even  there  his 
labors  were  constant,  and  on  his  return  to  active  service 
in  1878  came  perhaps  the  most  important  phase  of  his 
activity  in  internal  affairs.  He  seemed  now  to  rise  above 
his  discouragement  and  to  forget  all  his  ills.  In  his 
war  on  free  trade  his  labor  was  colossal;  the  extent  of 
his  knowledge  and  the  acuteness  of  his  thought,  as  dis- 
played in  his  speeches  at  this  time,  were  a  matter  of 
marvel  both  to  his  friends  and  enemies,  and  none  won- 
dered at  them  more  than  men  who  had  risen  to  profes- 
sional eminence  by  life-long  studjr  of  political  economy.1 

Here  should  be  noted  another  development  of  his  activ- 
ity. He  kept  in  his  pay  a  great  number  of  the  men  most 
skillful  in  directing  public  opinion  through  the  press. 

i  As  regards  Bismarck's  activity  in  this  field  and  his  wonderful  char- 
acteristics revealed  in  it,  see  Ihe  very  striking  tribute  paid  him  by  the 
eminent  economist,  Professor  Gustav  Schmoller,  in  his  Vier  Itriefe. 


BISMARCK  503 

Summoning  them  at  all  hours  of  the  day  or  night  to 
the  Chancellor's  palace  in  the  Wilhelm-Strasse  or  to 
Varzin  or  to  Friedrichsruh,  he  laid  before  them  sketches 
of  articles  for  newspapers,  for  magazines,  for  reviews, 
not  only  at  the  capital  but  in  other  centres  of  German 
thought,  and,  indeed,  in  foreign  centres.  Sometimes 
these  dictations  took  the  shape  of  complete  articles, 
thought  out  with  great  power  and  expressed  with  con- 
summate skill ;  sometimes  they  were  extended  corrections 
of  articles  written  in  obedience  to  hints  from  him,  and 
very  curious  are  his  annotations  on  them.  Among  the 
manuscripts  in  the  library  of  Cornell  University  are  three 
of  these  articles,  written  by  others,  but  with  copious 
changes,  suppressions,  and  amendments  in  his  own  hand. 
Various  things  in  these  annotations  are  worthy  of  note, 
but  perhaps  most  characteristic  is  his  careful  suppres- 
sion of  all  compliments  to  himself,  whether  open  or  im- 
plied: there  seemed  in  him  a  scorn  for  any  such  effort 
to  extend  his  fame.1 

But,  as  these  last  great  measures  were  carried  and  as  he 
seemed  about  to  bring  in  a  new  epoch  and  to  grasp  power 
more  tenaciously  than  ever,  thinking  men  began  to  doubt 
and  even  to  fear.  The  old  Emperor  William,  who  had 
stood  by  his  Chancellor  so  long  and  so  manfully,  was 
evidently  fading  away,  and  when,  in  the  spring  of  1888, 
he  died,  doubts  and  fears  increased.  It  was  well  known 
that  the  mother  of  the  new  sovereign,  his  wife,  and  many 
of  his  closest  friends  had  for  years  hated  Bismarck's 
policy,  and  that,  at  one  time,  sympathy  with  this  opposi- 
tion had  caused  Frederick  while  heir  to  the  throne  to 
abandon  the  capital.  It  was  well  known  also  that  the  old 
Prussian  theories  and  indeed  some  of  the  new  German 
theories  of  the  Chancellor  were  at  the  opposite  pole  from 

i  For  a  large  number  of  Bismarck's  sketches  and  drafts  for  "reptile 
press"  articles,  see  Buseh's  Diary,  English  translation,  vol.  i,  pp.  36  and 
following. 


504  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

those  of  the  new  monarch,  whose  ideas  had  been  greatly 
influenced  by  his  life  in  England,  and,  above  all,  by  his 
wife,  the  gifted  daughter  of  the  British  Queen.  There 
was  wide  dread  of  a  clash  and  final  break-up  between  the 
new  sovereign  and  his  father's  adviser. 

But  it  was  the  unexpected  which  occurred.  In  spite 
of  his  theoretical  preferences  for  English  constitutional 
monarchy  over  German  mitigated  absolutism,  Frederick 
had  learned  to  value  the  great  Chancellor,  and  in  various 
emergencies,  notably  after  the  battle  of  Sadowa,  had 
stood  by  him  firmly  when  the  old  Emperor,  the  Court, 
and  the  generals  were  against  him. 

But  there  was  now  a  special  reason  for  retaining  the 
Chancellor  in  power.  The  situation  was  one  of  the  most 
pathetic  in  human  history :  the  new  sovereign  was  dying, 
and  under  constant  torture  from  his  disease.  He  knew 
well  that  he  had  neither  time  nor  strength  for  a  conflict 
with  the  old  Prussian  system,  and,  though  during  the 
ninety-nine  days  of  his  reign  he  made  changes  and  be- 
stowed favors  among  officers  of  the  state  which  indicated 
his  longing  for  a  new  era,  he  held  fast  to  Bismarck. 

The  confidence  thus  shown  was  well  repaid.  Even 
during  this  short  reign,  the  Chancellor  had  one  striking 
opportunity  to  prove  his  patriotism.  To  all  appearance 
this  opportunity  was  a  matter  of  little  moment, — nothing 
more  than  the  proposed  marriage  of  a  Hohenzollern 
princess  to  a  prince  of  German  birth,  Alexander  of  Bat- 
tenberg,  former  ruler  of  Bulgaria.  It  interested  the 
world  at  large,  for  it  was  understood  to  be  a  love  match, 
and  "all  the  world  loves  a  lover." 

The  women  of  the  imperial  family  and  most  of  the 
men  wished  it;  all  the  women  and  most  of  the  men 
throughout  Germany  and  Great  Britain  who  read  the 
newspapers  wished  it ;  and  certain  great  party  leaders  in 
Parliament  and  through  the  press,  seeing  in  this  an 
opportunity  to  embarrass  Bismarck,  poured  scorn  over 


BISMARCK  505 

all  who  opposed  it.  Had  Bismarck  been  a  statesman  of 
the  Beaconsfield  sort — anxious  to  secure  support  among 
women  at  court  and  especially  from  the  new  Empress, — 
anxious  to  secure  approval  from  the  average  family  man 
and  woman  throughout  the  Empire, — anxious  to  be  ap- 
plauded in  theatres  and  on  the  promenades, — he  would 
have  favored  the  alliance.  But  he  realized  the  political 
danger  in  the  case — the  danger  of  complications  with 
Bulgaria,  and  indeed  with  Bussia,  the  possibility  of  new 
alliances  which  might  interfere  with  his  policy  to  restore 
good  relations  with  the  reigning  house  of  Russia  and  to 
keep  clear  of  Balkan  matters.  He  therefore  opposed  the 
marriage  resolutely, — winning  over  the  new  Emperor 
and  even  the  Queen  of  Great  Britain. 

This  undoubtedly  brought  upon  him  much  unpopular- 
ity, but  it  showed  thinking  men  how  little  he  esteemed 
the  applause  of  courts  or  mobs  compared  with  the  inter- 
ests of  his  country. 

At  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Frederick,  in  the  midst 
of  the  general  sorrow  for  the  noblest  occupant  of  an 
imperial  throne  since  Marcus  Aurelius,  there  was  one 
thing  which  seemed  of  especially  good  augury.  The 
young  Emperor  William  II,  who  succeeded  him,  had  re- 
ceived an  admirable  education  and  had  profited  by  it. 
His  original  genius  and  talent,  remarkable  as  they  were, 
had  been  developed  by  studies  and  practical  discipline 
rare  indeed  among  the  heirs  to  sovereignty.  In  the  gym- 
nasium he  had  sat  among  the  sons  of  the  plain  people; 
had  obtained  profit  in  the  university  and  in  the  military 
and  naval  schools ;  had  gained  actual  and  practical  expe- 
rience in  the  army  and  navy ;  was  trained  in  the  leading 
offices  of  administration ;  had  kept  abreast  of  progress  in 
art,  science,  and  literature.  His  knowledge  of  German 
and  European  history  was  good, — evidently  inspiring  him 
with  a  high  patriotism ;  and  it  was  especially  as  a  German 
patriot  that  he  recognized  the  Chancellor's  greatness. 


506  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

This  recognition  had  been  made  known  by  the  young 
Prince  in  ways  which  showed  love  and  devotion  for  the 
old  statesman,  and  it  was  universally  felt  that  the  Bis- 
marck Era  would  be  continued  through  the  new  reign. 

But  here  also  it  was  the  unexpected  which  occurred. 
The  young  Emperor's  activity  was  all-embracing.  Every 
interest  of  his  country  he  considered  a  direct  interest  of 
his  own;  the  range  of  subjects  which  he  studied  and  on 
which  he  delivered  addresses  eloquently,  and  indeed 
thoughtfully,  was  encyclopaedic.  Did  any  man  do  any- 
thing notable  in  any  part  of  the  Empire,  the  young  sov- 
ereign took  the  earliest  opportunity  to  know  him;  was 
any  scientific  or  practical  discovery  of  value  made  in  any 
other  country,  competent  professors  were  at  once  sum- 
moned to  the  Imperial  Palace  to  explain  it.  He  had, 
soon  after  his  accession,  visited  not  only  most  parts  of 
his  own  Empire,  but  all  the  surrounding  countries,  save 
France,  and  had  made  acquaintance  with  their  sovereigns 
and  statesmen.  To  the  Chancellor,  broad  as  was  his 
grasp  of  German  and  European  affairs,  this  activity 
could  not  but  be  embarrassing:  clearly  the  new  imperial 
will  was  not  prone  to  move  in  the  old  grooves.  Sundry 
appointments  also  were  made  by  the  monarch  without 
consulting  the  Chancellor:  young  aspirants  were  substi- 
tuted for  elderly  officials.  Moltke,  the  great  "  battle- 
thinker,"  having  retired,  was  succeeded  in  the  virtual 
headship  of  the  army  by  Count  Waldersee,  to  whom  the 
new  Emperor  seemed  to  become  greatly  attached, — con- 
stantly consulting  him,  frequently  taking  long  walks  with 
him;  and  this  fact,  with  a  New  York  Herald  interview 
which  indicated  that  Count  Waldersee  felt  that  Germany 
was  able  to  stand  alone  against  her  enemies,  even  with- 
out the  aid  of  her  allies,  evidently  aroused  misgivings  in 
the  breast  of  the  old  Chancellor  who  had  given  so  much 
time  and  thought  to  secure  these  allies. 

From   time   to   time   came   utterances   which   showed 


BISMARCK  507 

this :  Bismarck  complained  of  interference  in  state  mat- 
ters by  irresponsible  persons ;  of  appointments  which  he 
had  not  advised ;  of  procedures  which  he  would  have  had 
otherwise. 

One  thing  was  especially  galling.  The  new  Emperor 
showed  a  disposition  to  communicate  directly  with  his 
ministers  and  to  have  them  communicate  directly  with 
him.  This  was  contrary  to  the  Chancellor's  fundamental 
ideas  of  proper  government:  he  would  have  all  com- 
munications between  the  sovereign  and  his  ministers  pass 
through  the  Chancellor,  and  he  based  his  view  upon  rules 
adopted  by  the  Prussian  monarchy  long  before  he  came 
into  office. 

Yet,  from  time  to  time,  there  came  matters  on  which  in 
the  face  of  the  nation  and  the  world  the  old  agreement 
between  sovereign  and  chancellor  was  maintained. 
Worthy  of  note  is  it,  that  when  the  eminent  theologian  and 
historian,  Harnack,  was  called  to  the  Berlin  Faculty  and 
bitter  opposition  had  been  aroused  in  the  high  orthodox 
party  against  him,  taking  shape  in  sermons,  speeches, 
and  newspaper  articles,  the  young  Emperor  and  Bismarck 
stood  firmly  together  for  him.  Here  may  well  be  remem- 
bered a  tribute  to  the  Chancellor  which  meant  much, 
though  at  first  sight  apparently  comical.  The  University 
of  Giessen,  on  the  birthday  of  Luther,  conferred  upon  Bis- 
marck the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Theology.  He  already 
held  doctorates  in  philosophy  and  law,  and  this  new  dis- 
tinction, completing  the  cycle  of  academic  honors,  he 
accepted  in  a  letter  showing  a  breadth  of  religious  sym- 
pathy which  in  his  early  days  would  have  been  hateful 
to  him. 

But  new  subjects  arose  in  which  the  Emperor  and  the 
Chancellor  were  not  in  equal  accord,  and  among  these 
Socialism. 

Much  alarm  had  been  aroused  by  the  gatherings  of 
Anarchists,  Nihilists,  and  adherents  of  the  red  flag,  in 


508  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Switzerland,  and  more  directly  by  a  great  mining  strike 
extending  over  large  parts  of  the  Empire.  This  was  a 
provoking  return  to  Bismarck  for  his  own  series  of  state 
socialist  ventures — state  insurance  against  accidents, 
illness,  and  old  age;  and  he  was  clearly  purposed  to  re- 
turn to  his  old  plan  of  administering  chastisement  with 
one  hand  while  bestowing  benefits  with  the  other. 

But  the  bill  which  he  brought  into  Parliament,  giving 
extraordinary  powers  to  banish  individuals  and  to  sup- 
press newspapers,  was  wrecked  as  soon  as  launched ;  the 
Emperor  preferred  reliance  on  laws  less  drastic, — was 
clearly  determined  that  his  reign  should  not  begin  with 
bloodshed. 

This  was  the  first  main  break  between  monarch  and 
minister;  but  soon  there  came  another  which  proved  to 
be  the  beginning  of  the  end,  and  this  was  simply  an  inter- 
view granted  by  the  Chancellor  to  his  old  opponent, 
"Windthorst.  Though  it  had  been  granted  at  Windt- 
horst's  request,  the  men  hostile  to  Bismarck  saw  in  it 
a  proof  that  he  was  seeking  clerical  support  against  the 
Emperor. 

Therefore  it  was  that  the  Head  of  the  Civil  Cabinet 
was  sent  from  the  Imperial  Palace  to  the  Chancellor 
with  a  notice  that,  whenever  he  should  receive  mem- 
bers of  the  legislative  bodies  thereafter  to  discuss  polit- 
ical matters,  the  Emperor  must  be  informed  beforehand. 
To  this  Bismarck  sent  answer  that  he  "allowed  no  one 
but  himself  to  control  his  threshold."  On  this  the  Em- 
peror came  early  next  morning,  while  Bismarck  was  still 
in  bed,  demanded  an  interview  at  once,  and  on  Bismarck's 
appearance  asked  him  what  the  conference  with  Windt- 
horst meant.  To  this  Bismarck  answered  that  it  was 
a  private  matter.  Thereupon  the  Emperor  rejoined 
that  he  had  a  right  to  be  informed  whenever  his  Chan- 
cellor entered  into  discussions  with  a  party  leader.    This 


BISMARCK  509 

doctrine  Bismarck  at  once  rejected,  insisting  again  that 
no  one  could  interfere  within  his  threshold.  At  this  the 
Emperor  asked:  "Not  even  when  I,  as  sovereign,  com- 
mand you?" — to  which  Bismarck  answered:  "The  com- 
mand of  my  master  ends  with  my  wife's  drawing-room, " 
and  he  added  that  it  was  only  in  obedience  to  a  promise 
made  to  the  Emperor's  grandfather  that  he  was  still  in 
service,  and  that  he  was  ready  to  withdraw  into  private 
life  whenever  he  became  an  embarrassment  to  his  sov- 
ereign. Two  days  passed  with  no  signs  of  a  resignation 
from  the  Chancellor,  and  then  General  Hahncke  was  sent 
with  a  notice  that  the  Emperor  was  awaiting  it.  To  this 
Bismarck  answered  in  substance  that  he  would  not  end 
a  career  like  his  by  virtual  desertion, — that  His  Majesty 
could  secure  his  resignation  at  any  time  by  ordering  him 
to  send  it.  Thereupon  there  was  forwarded  a  demand, 
in  due  form,  that  the  resignation  be  sent  by  a  certain 
hour.  At  this  Bismarck  demanded  time  for  the  prepa- 
ration of  a  suitable  document,  and  this  he  finally  sent 
on  March  20,  1890,  with  a  full  discussion  of  what  he  con- 
sidered the  main  principles  involved. 

In  accepting  it,  the  Emperor  made  no  mention  of  the 
circumstances  which  had  caused  it,  but  wrote  an  eloquent 
tribute  to  Bismarck's  services,  and  sent  with  it  a  patent 
conferring  upon  him  the  Dukedom  of  Lauenburg,  with 
verbal  intimations  of  a  grant  of  property  suitable  to  so 
great  a  dignity. 

The  whole  action  of  Bismarck  in  this  crisis  was  cer- 
tainly not  in  keeping  with  his  character  as  the  world  had 
previously  known  it.  Though  he  had  long  and  earnestly 
declared  his  preference  for  private  life  and  his  desire  for 
relief  from  public  duty,  he  now  showed  a  painful  reluc- 
tance to  give  up  his  post  and  a  most  bitter  feeling  toward 
all  who  had,  or  had  seemed  to  have,  any  part  in  the  oppo- 
sition to  him :  he  evidently  believed  that  Germany  could 


510  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

hardly  maintain  its  existence  without  his  continuance  in 
office.1 

There  was  a  strange  alloy  of  strength  and  weakness 
in  his  course,  both  now  and  afterward.  The  dotation  to 
accompany  the  Duchy  of  Lauenburg  he  rejected,  declar- 
ing that  services  like  his  were  not  to  be  rewarded  by  a 
money  gift  like  the  drink  money  thrown  to  a  postman 
at  Christmas.  As  to  the  patent  itself,  while  he  did  not 
reject  it,  he  from  time  to  time  made  it  an  object  of  ridi- 
cule, saying  that  he  could  use  it  should  he  ever  wish  to 
travel — incognito.  Fortunately  the  general  public  knew 
nothing  of  the  way  in  which  his  resignation  had  been 
brought  about,  or  of  the  less  dignified  scenes  which  it  had 
occasioned;  Bismarck's  letter  was  not  published,  but  the 
Emperor's  gifts,  including  his  portrait  at  full  length, 
were  widely  made  known. 

The  result  of  Bismarck's  retirement  was  an  outburst 
of  national  feeling  such  as  had  scarcely  been  known 
in  the  history  of  Europe.  During  his  drive  to  the  Im- 
perial Palace  to  take  leave  of  the  sovereign,  and  at  his 
departure  from  the  city,  there  came  tributes  of  respect 
and  affection  by  assembled  myriads,  such  as  no  other  Ger- 
man statesman  had  ever  obtained.  Bismarck  wept,  and 
from  multitudes  of  strong  men  came  floods  of  tears.2 

The  conduct  of  William  II  in  demanding  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  great  Chancellor  has  been  frequently  and 
sharply  criticised;  but  thoughtful  men  have  more  and 
more  agreed  in  the  opinion  that  the  act  was  wise. 
To  have  taken  any  other  course  would  have  sub- 
jected   the    Emperor,    his    dynasty,    and    possibly    the 

i  See  Prince  Minister's  account  of  Bismarck's  conduct  at  this  period, 
as  reported  by  Blowitz  in  the  London  Times  and  later  in  Harper's  Maga- 
zine. 

2  The  scenes  at  Bismarck's  departure,  in  the  Wilhelm-Strasse  and  on 
the  Unter  den  Linden,  have  been  described  to  the  present  writer  by  varioua 
persons  who  were  present,  and  all  testify  to  the  widespread  sorrow  shown 
by  the  weeping  of  strong  men,  as  well  as  of  Bismarck  himself. 


BISMARCK  511 

Empire,  to  serious  dangers.  In  the  days  of  Wil- 
liam I,  Bismarck,  under  pressure  of  opposition,  dis- 
appointment, and  ill  health,  had  often  tendered  his 
resignation,  and  at  times  in  a  way  almost  exasperat- 
ing; but  the  old  Emperor,  who  had  won  the  respect  of 
the  world  by  force  and  decision  during  long  years  of  war 
and  peace,  could  afford  to  submit  to  all  this.  More  than 
once  when  his  great  Chancellor  sulked,  the  old  monarch 
had  driven  to  the  palace  in  the  Wilhelm-Strasse  and  by 
kindly  remonstrances  and  entreaties  had  set  him  on  his 
feet  again.  For  this  the  right-thinking  part  of  the  nation 
felt  grateful  to  the  sovereign ;  but  a  young  monarch  just 
coming  to  the  throne  could  not  follow  this  example:  to 
have  begun  by  such  concessions  would  have  certainly  been 
considered  weakness  and  made  him  appear  simply  as  a 
roi  faineant — a  youth  who  reigned  but  did  not  govern — 
and  would  have  subjected  the  whole  monarchical  system 
of  Prussia  and  of  Germany  to  the  charge  of  decrepitude 
and  decay.  The  resignation  was  doubtless  a  severe  trial 
to  the  young  monarch,  but  his  courage  in  demanding  it 
and  his  firmness  in  insisting  upon  it  undoubtedly  in- 
creased respect  for  him  in  the  Empire,  and  indeed 
throughout  the  world. 

Over  the  following  period  the  admirers  and  best  friends 
of  the  Chancellor  would  gladly  draw  a  veil.  Nothing 
during  his  long  public  life  became  him  so  ill  as  his  leaving 
it.  During  the  whole  eight  years  following,  his  course 
certainly  lacked  the  dignity  which  his  best  friends  could 
have  wished  to  see  in  it.  Instead  of  wise  counsels,  unob- 
trusively tendered,  there  came  from  him  constant  fire  of 
criticisms  upon  the  Chancellor  who  succeeded  him,  and 
generally  upon  all  measures  taken  by  the  new  govern- 
ment, whether  in  diplomatic,  internal,  or  colonial  affairs. 
His  residence,  Friedrichsruh,  became  a  special  place  of 
pilgrimage  for  scandal-seekers  and  sensation-mongers. 
To  these  he  never  hesitated  to  say  things  deeply  embar- 


512  SEVEN  GEEAT  STATESMEN 

rassing  to  the  government.  On  the  other  hand,  the  con- 
duct of  the  government  was  hardly  less  unsatisfactory. 
Official  notice  was  sent  out  to  the  various  representatives 
of  the  Empire,  declaring  the  opinions  of  the  former  Chan- 
cellor unworthy  of  consideration ;  and  when,  on  the  mar- 
riage of  his  eldest  son  at  Vienna,  Bismarck  visited  that 
capital,  such  notifications  were  issued  by  the  German  gov- 
ernment that  Bismarck's  old  friends,  the  King  of  Saxony 
and  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  refused  to  see  him,  and  the 
German  Embassy  kept  aloof  from  him.  This  in  its  turn 
provoking  Bismarck's  resentment,  he  at  various  places 
spoke  wildly  and  almost  treasonably.  He  constantly  ex- 
hibited himself,  even  to  casual  visitors,  as  that  pitiful 
being,  a  man  with  a  grievance.  Talking  with  Henry  Vil- 
lard,  he  spoke  of  himself  as  "kicked  out  of  office";  and 
when  Mr.  Villard  remonstrated,  and  tried  to  convince 
him  that  such  a  statement  was  unjust  to  himself,  he 
angrily  reiterated  it. 

Fortunately,  during  a  severe  illness  of  the  old  Chan- 
cellor, the  young  Emperor  took  occasion  to  send  most 
hearty  messages  with  tenders  of  kind  offices,  and  named 
after  him,  with  appropriate  speeches,  one  of  the  great 
warships  of  the  new  navy,  thus  beginning  a  new  era  of 
mutual  visits  and  better  feeling.1 

From  time  to  time  came  tributes  which  showed  that  the 
nation,  as  well  as  its  sovereign,  had  not  forgotten  Bis- 
marck's services,  and  at  his  death,  in  1898,  there  was  an 
outburst  of  feeling  which  seemed  to  blot  out  forever  all 
painful  remembrances.  Excepting  a  few  ultraists  in  the 
Imperial  Parliament,  the  whole  nation,  with  the  Emperor 
at  its  head,  arose  to  honor  his  memory.  When  his  body 
was  conveyed  to  its  last  resting  place  in  the  Saxon  Forest, 
when  in  various  parts  of  the  Empire  memorials  were 
erected  recalling  noted  periods  of  his  life  or  phases  of 
his  activity,  and  when  finally  the  great  national  monu- 

i  See  Horst  Kohl,  Bismarck  Jahrbuch,  v,  p.  345. 


BISMARCK  513 

ment  to  him  was  unveiled  in  front  of  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment-House at  the  capital,  innumerable  evidences  of 
gratitude  and  respect  proved  that  his  weaknesses  were 
forgotten,  that  his  services  were  inscribed  on  the  heart 
of  the  nation,  and  that  his  place  was  secure  as  one  of  the 
two  greatest  state  servants  Germany  had  ever  known.1 

i  For  a  very  thoughtful  comparison  between  Stein  and  Bismarck,  see 
Dr.  Neubauer,  in  Horst  Kohl,  Bismarck-Jahrbuch,  vi,  pp.  243  and  follow- 
ing. Very  wisely,  resemblances  are  dwelt  upon  rather  than  differences, 
and  no  attempt  is  made  to  assert  the  superiority  of  either  statesman. 


33 


VI 

AS  we  look  back  over  Bismarck's  whole  career  there- 
looms  up  before  us  bis  historic  personality, — huge, 
portentous,  like  some  vast  figure  hewn  from  the  living 
rock  in  India  or  on  the  upper  Nile. 

In  this  figure  appear  various  strata:  mediaeval  ideas 
of  feudal  rule  and  duty,  Frederician  conceptions  of  the 
absolute  monarch  as  a  state  servant,  devotion  to  Prussian 
supremacy  and  German  unity,  German  liberal  ideas 
implying  reliance  on  the  entire  people,  American  repub- 
lican ideas  necessitating  local  government  and  a  confed- 
eration,— laissez  faire,  protectionism,  absolutism,  social- 
ism, conservatism,  radicalism.  Veinings  also  appear, — 
permeating  all  strata  alike:  distrust  of  Eousseau  senti- 
mentalism  and  Manchester  liberalism,  contempt  for  mar- 
plots, hatred  for  demagogues, — degenerating  frequently 
into  dislike  of  constitutionalism,  and  even  into  scorn  for 
rational  freedom. 

His  physical  qualities  combined  to  give  him  Titanic 
force:  his  huge  body,  his  brain  (found  after  his  death 
to  be  greater  than  that  of  any  known  contemporary),  his 
easy  dominion  over  the  world  about  him,  as  a  horseman, 
a  hunter,  a  forester,  a  born  leader  of  men.1 

Looking  next  into  his  intellectual  qualities,  we  recall 
first  his  insight, — his  skill  in  discerning  at  once  the  cen- 
tral fact  in  any  situation  or  combination — the  germ  of 
victory.  And  we  note  next  his  foresight, — the  power  of 
seeing  how  principles  are  to  work  themselves  out  or  can 

i  On  the  size  and  weight  of  Bismarck's  brain,  as  revealed  by  the  post- 
mortem examination,  see  Gustav  Schmoller,  Yicr  Briefe,  as  above. 

514 


BISMARCK  515 

be  made  to  work  themselves  out.  It  was  this  insight  and 
foresight  which,  during  the  Crimean  War,  led  him  to  op- 
pose the  general  German  tendency  to  take  sides  with  the 
western  powers  against  Kussia,  and  which  enabled  him 
later  to  secure  the  neutrality  of  Kussia  in  the  Prussian 
war  with  France:  these  too  were  the  qualities  which  in 
the  Danish  war  led  him  to  resist  the  Emperor,  the  ruling 
classes,  and  the  German  nation  in  their  partiality  for 
"the  Augustenburger ' '  and  which  enabled  him  to  secure 
Schleswig-Holstein  with  the  harbor  of  Kiel  for  Prussia 
and  thereby  to  give  a  new  stimulus  to  German  patriotism, 
— the  qualities  which,  when  he  had  brought  Austria  to 
the  feet  of  Prussia,  led  him  to  resist  and  conquer  the 
Prussian  king,  army,  and  people  in  all  their  passion  for 
a  revengeful  triumph,  and  enabled  him  to  secure  the 
acquiescence  of  Austria  in  the  great  war  with  France, — 
the  qualities  which  led  him  during  the  entire  war  with 
France  to  resist  everything  likely  to  draw  Germany  aside 
from  its  one  purpose — the  establishment  of  its  nation- 
ality. 

Still  another  of  his  intellectual  qualities  was  breadth 
of  vision.  The  most  learned  of  modern  English  histo- 
rians, Lord  Acton,  in  claiming  that  Napoleon  was  a 
greater  man  than  Caesar,  dwelt  especially  on  the  fact  that 
the  French  Emperor  carried  in  his  mind  not  only  exact 
knowledge  regarding  every  man  of  mark  in  Europe, 
whether  supporting  or  opposing  his  policy,  whether  in  the 
field  or  in  the  cabinet ;  that  he  had  formed  an  estimate  of 
each  man's  value,  and  a  forecast  of  his  action,  and  that, 
whether  the  great  conqueror  was  in  Paris  or  in  Warsaw 
or  in  Vienna  or  in  Berlin  or  in  Madrid,  all  European 
affairs  centred  in  him.  The  same  quality  is  seen  in 
Bismarck  in  all  save  military  knowledge,  and  with  a  far 
more  sane  grasp  of  facts  and  an  infinitely  happier  power 
of  prophetic  vision.  Hence  it  was  that,  while  the  empire 
built  by  Napoleon  came  to  naught  in  ten  years  and  by  a 


516  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

process  inflicting  infinite  misery  upon  the  nations  who  had 
trusted  him,  the  empire  which  Bismarck  built  has  stood 
through  forty  years  of  stress,  has  risen  from  strength  to 
strength,  and  has  brought  prosperity  to  his  country  and 
peace  to  Europe.1 

Glance  next  at  some  of  Bismarck's  moral  qualities. 
As  we  have  already  seen,  the  foremost  of  these — that 
which  was  knit  into  his  whole  moral  fibre — was  his  cour- 
age. From  his  boyhood  this  was  especially  noted. 
Whether  leading  his  schoolmates  into  mimic  battle,  or 
plunging  into  deep  water  to  save  his  orderly  from  drown- 
ing, or  risking  life  and  limb  in  his  wild  rides  in  the 
marches,  or  grappling  instantly,  at  close  quarters  and 
unarmed,  with  the  assassin,  it  was  part  of  his  nature. 
But  it  took  higher  forms — great  historic  forms — as  when 
he  entered  into  his  contest  with  Parliament,  braving  the 
fate  of  Strafford  and  reconciling  King  William  to  the 
fate  of  Charles  I,  or  when  he  braved  the  ill-will  of  courts 
and  cabals,  the  loss  of  old  friendships,  hatred  through- 
out Germany,  and  indeed  throughout  Europe,  by  pursu- 
ing policies  which  he  believed  patriotic, — or  when  he 
took  upon  his  own  shoulders  the  responsibility  for  the 
war  with  Denmark,  and  again  for  the  war  with  Austria, 
and  again  for  the  war  with  France. 

It  must  be  confessed  that,  though  he  was  never  hot- 
headed, his  courage  rose  at  times  to  heights  that  were 
dangerous.  Happy  the  nation  that  never  needs  this: 
for  his  was  at  times  the  courage  of  the  desperado, — of 
the  gambler  who  stakes  all  on  a  single  throw.  It  is  a 
question  whether  any  statesman  has,  for  anything  save 
the  national  existence,  the  right  to  pledge  a  nation  to 
such  responsibilities  as  those  to  which  Bismarck  at 
times  bound  Prussia  and  the  German  people.  And  yet 
it  must  be  said  that  another  great  quality  of  his,  which 

iLord  Acton's  argument  regarding  Napoleon  is  given  in  the  Auto- 
biography of  the  present  writer,  vol.  ii,  pp.  414,  415. 


BISMARCK  517 

must  not  by  any  means  be  lost  sight  of,  was  his  caution, 
— his  great  caution.  His  career  exemplifies  the  warn- 
ing— "Be  bold, — be  bold, — be  bold:  be  not  too  bold." 
Striking  evidences  of  this  are  seen  in  his  holding  back 
his  King  and  country  from  wars  until  the  psychological 
moment, — in  his  holding  back  the  adhesion  of  lesser 
states  to  the  empire  until  the  greater  states  had  ample 
time  to  reflect, — in  his  forbearance  regarding  various 
deeds  of  neighboring  powers  which  must  have  tried  him 
sorely. 

Here,  indeed,  is  seen  a  characteristic  quality  of  his 
genius — in  the  proper  admixture  of  boldness  with  caution, 
— in  his  recognition  of  the  moment  when  caution  is  to 
cease  and  boldness  is  to  begin,  and  when  boldness  is  to 
cease  and  caution  is  to  begin.  At  such  transitions  the 
working  of  his  mind  seemed  intuitive,  but  it  was  doubt- 
less the  result  of  his  amazing  faculty  for  running  out 
lines  of  conduct  in  all  their  possible  developments,  keep- 
ing them  before  his  mind  and  comparing  them.  Various 
public  utterances  of  his  show  his  own  consciousness  of 
this  quality  in  his  genius.  He  said:  "I  began  very 
early  to  be  a  hunter  and  fisher,  and,  in  both  pursuits, 
waiting  for  the  right  moment  is  the  rule,  which  I  have 
applied  to  politics."  Evidence  of  it  is  seen  in  the  fact 
that  every  one  of  his  great  efforts  of  European  concern 
succeeded  at  all  its  important  stages.  In  his  career  we 
find  no  Spanish  campaign,  no  march  on  Moscow,  no 
battle  of  Leipzig,  and  hence  no  Waterloo.  Lord  Acton 
dwelt  on  Napoleon's  ability  to  see  European  men  and 
things  and  conditions — in  their  entirety — at  any  given 
moment;  but  the  two  most  important  things  of  all  Na- 
poleon failed  to  see :  first,  that  during  more  than  a  decade 
he  had  been  steadily  arousing  the  patriotism  of  his 
enemies;  and,  secondly,  that  he  had  been  as  steadily 
teaching  them  to  beat  him. 

More  than  this,  though  Bismarck  was  a  good  hater, 


518         SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

he  never  planned  or  conducted  great  enterprises  in 
obedience  to  hatred.  There  was  nothing  in  his  policy 
akin  to  the  hatred  for  Great  Britain  which  finally  blinded 
Napoleon,  led  him  on  fanatically  in  his  continental  policy, 
and  brought  on  the  catastrophe,  in  his  mid-career. 

But  as  to  another  quality  the  judgment  of  contempo- 
raries, and  especially  of  Englishmen  and  Americans,  has 
borne  heavily  upon  Bismarck.  He  is  charged  with  de- 
luding his  adversaries,  especially  Napoleon  III,  and 
an  English  essayist  goes  so  far  as  to  apply  to  his  career 
Tennyson's  famous  verses,  but  to  leave  out  their  last 
four  words : 

"Ah,  God,  for  a  man  with  heart,  head,  hand, 
Like  some  of  the  simple  great  ones  gone 
For  ever  and  ever  by; 
One  still,  strong  man  in  a  blatant  land, 
Whatever  they  call  him,  what  care  I, 
Aristocrat,  democrat,  autocrat — one 
Who  can  rule  and  dare  not  lie." 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  Bismarck  at  many  periods 
during  his  career  resorted  to  intrigue  and  strategy,  and, 
when  he  did  so,  proved  himself  a  master.  And  it  is  also 
true  that  some  of  his  intrigues  were  hardly  to  his  credit ; 
but,  as  a  simple  matter  of  fact,  never  did  statesman 
more  thoroughly  disdain  falsehood,  whether  diplomatic 
or  other.  He  himself  proudly  declared:  "Lying  have 
I  never  learned,  not  even  as  a  diplomat."1  His  pride 
made  falsehood  repulsive  to  him.  This  is  the  secret  of 
that  frankness  which  so  often  startled  his  contemporaries. 
Publicly  and  privately, — in  talks  over  the  green  table 
at  Frankfort  and  in  his  despatches, — in  discussions  with 
Napoleon  III  or  Alexander  II  or  Francis  Joseph, — in 
interviews   with   statesmen   at  Berlin  and   Vienna   and 

i  "Das  Lugen  habe  ich  auch  als  Diplomat  nicht  gelernt."  Cited  by 
Delin,  Bismarck  als  Erziehcr,  p.  8. 


BISMARCK  519 

Paris  and  London,  and  in  his  home  letters,  he  frankly 
foretold  the  consequences  of  Austrian  policy  and  fore- 
shadowed his  own  intentions  regarding  it.  He  openly 
demanded  at  Frankfort  and  Vienna,  as  at  Berlin,  a 
change  from  the  old  Austrian  contempt  for  Prussia,  and 
openly  pledged  himself  to  drive  her  out  of  Germany  un- 
less she  made  this  change.  This  frankness  it  was  which 
led  Napoleon  III  to  speak  of  him  as  "not  serious,"  and 
Disraeli  to  say,  "Watch  that  man,  he  means  what  he 
says."  Frankly,  at  all  times  and  places,  as  long  as 
speech  was  of  use,  he  prophesied  that  if  Austria  did  not 
make  proper  concession  to  the  rights  of  Prussia  and  the 
aspirations  of  Germany,  war  must  come,  and  to  none  did 
he  tell  this  more  openly  than  to  the  Austrians  themselves. 
His  ambition  to  build  up  a  united  Germany  with  Prussia 
as  its  leader  he  frankly  revealed  to  Napoleon  III,  to 
Disraeli,  to  Alexander  II, — to  all  the  leaders  of  the  time. 
It  has  frequently  been  charged  that  he  only  used  truth 
in  order  to  deceive  more  effectively.  Whatever  alloy  of 
this  sort  there  may  have  been  in  his  utterances,  it  is  still 
true  that  his  invincible  pride  made  prevarication  hateful 
to  him.  Perhaps  a  tangle  of  motives  showed  itself  most 
curiously  in  his  famous  talk  with  Countess  Hohenthal, 
the  wife  of  the  Saxon  minister  at  Berlin,  the  year  before 
the  Austrian  campaign.  Sitting  next  him  at  dinner  she 
asked  him  jocosely  if  he  was  intending  to  bring  on  war; 
he,  though  knowing  that  all  her  sympathies  were  with 
Austria,  at  once  answered,  "Yes,"  and  vaunted  the 
readiness  of  the  Prussian  army.  She  then  said  to  him, 
"I  have  two  estates,  one  in  Bohemia,  the  other  near 
Leipzig.  To  which  would  you  advise  me  to  take  my  fam- 
ily next  summer?"  Bismarck  replied,  "By  all  means  to 
the  estate  near  Leipzig ;  the  great  battle  between  Prussia 
and  Austria  will  probably  be  fought  near  your  Bohemian 
estate."  And  it  turned  out  that  Bismarck's  prophecy 
was  exactly  true.     That  even  his  foes  did  not  believe  it 


520  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

made  merely  to  mislead  was  shown  by  the  fact  that,  when 
it  was  a  little  later  dutifully  communicated  by  the  lady  to 
the  proper  quarter,  the  Austrians  concentrated  troops 
in  the  neighborhood  of  her  Bohemian  estate.  Bismarck's 
thought  may  have  been  that  he  would  be  disbelieved, 
and  Austria  thrown  on  a  false  scent,  or  his  wish  may 
have  been  to  give  additional  provocation  to  Austria  and 
insure  war,  but  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the  an- 
swer is,  in  some  measure,  an  evidence  of  his  colossal  dis- 
dain for  lying.  The  same  thing  was  seen  very  generally 
in  his  conversations  and  especially  in  his  own  house  and 
at  his  own  table.  His  frankness  regarding  his  own  past 
life  and  the  doings  of  his  colleagues  were  a  source  of  con- 
stant amazement.1 

So  too  in  his  parliamentary  struggles  his  truthfulness 
went  frequently  to  the  verge  of  brutality  and  at  times 
beyond  it.  The  utterance  of  half  truths  was  not  natural 
to  him.  His  feeling  is  given  in  the  Prussian  peasant 
saying — "Ein  Mann,  ein  "Wort."  His  great  contempo- 
rary, Mr.  Gladstone,  was  constantly  charged  with  leaving 
ambiguities  in  his  arguments  to  serve  as  possible  loop- 
holes for  retreat;  well-worn  jests  based  upon  his  alleged 
sophistries  were  always  current  and  especially  one  in 
which  a  bigamist  was  advised  to  induce  Mr.  Gladstone 
to  "explain  away"  one  of  his  wives.  Well  worn,  too, 
was  the  jocose  saying  of  a  London  cynic  that  "Gladstone 
was  capable  of  concealing  four  aces  in  his  sleeve  and 
persuading  himself  and  others  that  the  Almighty  had 
placed  them  there."  No  one  would  ever  have  thought 
even  in  jest  of  imputing  any  of  these  things  to  Bismarck. 
Nor  would  any  friend  of  Bismarck  ever  have  felt  it 
necessary  to  warn  him,  as  Thomas  Acland  warned  Glad- 

i  For  a  detailed  account  of  Bismarck's  conversation  with  Countess 
Hohenthal,  see  Keudell,  Bismarck  et  sa  Famille,  p.  227 ;  the  present  writer, 
in  his  Autobiography,  has  given  sundry  examples  of  similar  frankness 
and,  among  them,  the  "Affaire  Kelly." 


BISMARCK  521 

stone,  "for  the  sake  of  his  personal  influence  to  be  sure 
to  deal  with  a  question  without  refining  and  without  drag- 
ging in  some  recondite  view  not  seen  by  common  men, — 
in  short,  to  be  as  little  as  possible  like  Maurice  and  more 
like  the  Duke  of  Wellington."  Nor  have  any  of  Bis- 
marck's biographers  ever  felt  it  necessary,  as  have  those 
of  Disraeli,  to  smooth  over,  decorously,  public  statements 
widely  known  to  be  untruthful.1 

As  to  the  charge  that  Bismarck  deluded  Napoleon  III, 
it  would  be  more  just  to  say  that  Bismarck's  sin,  if  sin 
there  were,  lay  in  his  allowing  Napoleon  to  delude  him- 
self. At  worst  it  may  be  considered  as  strategy  in  a  war 
already  begun.  No  one  will  claim  that  there  was  in 
Bismarck  the  sturdy  truthfulness  of  Stein,  and  it  is  not 
to  be  denied  that  at  sundry  points  in  his  career,  as,  for 
example,  when  he  threw  Count  Eulenburg  out  of  the 
Prussian  ministry,  he  showed  a  duplicity  which  Stein 
would  never  have  shown.  But,  taken  as  a  whole,  his 
career  reveals  a  colossal  pride,  which  made  for  a  diplo- 
macy plain,  open,  straightforward. 

To  bring  this  into  full  relief  we  may  contrast  it  with 
the  diplomacy  of  the  first  Napoleon, — with  his  letters 
just  before  the  Treaty  of  Campo  Formio  to  the  Venetian 
Senate  and  the  French  Directory — full  of  lies  to  both, 
— or  with  the  preliminaries  to  the  Treaty  of  Tolentino, 
when  the  papal  councilors  at  the  Vatican  found  them- 
selves, as  compared  with  Bonaparte,  mere  novices  in 
falsehood, — or  with  his  elaborate  forgery  of  documents 
by  which  he  threw  blame  deserved  by  himself  upon  his 
brother,  King  Joseph. 

The  far  more  usual  charge  against  Bismarck  as  re- 

i  As  to  the  Acland  warning,  see  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  vol.  ii,  p. 
376. 

For  a  very  guarded,  but  none  the  less  lucid,  treatment  of  Disraeli's 
ordinary  attitude  toward  truth,  see  Bryce,  Studies  in  Contemporary 
Biography,  especially  in  the  essays  on  Gladstone  and  Disraeli. 


522  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

gards  his  dealings  with  antagonists  has  been  that  of 
brutality.  Delightful  as  he  could  be  with  his  friends 
and  with  his  moderate  opponents,  he  sometimes  pushed 
his  resentment  to  extremes  against  those  who  crossed  his 
path.  Noteworthy  in  this  respect  was  his  conduct  to- 
ward Von  Rudhart,  a  representative  of  Bavaria  in  the 
Imperial  Council.  This  representative  of  the  most  pow- 
erful of  the  German  states  save  Prussia  was  a  man  of 
the  highest  character  and  of  most  attractive  qualities, 
and  he  came  from  a  family  noted  for  its  public  services ; 
but  he  had  voted  on  one  occasion,  as  he  thought  his 
Bavarian  patriotism  demanded,  in  a  way  contrary  to 
Bismarck's  ideas,  and  shortly  afterward,  appearing  with 
his  wife  upon  his  arm  at  one  of  the  Chancellor's  recep- 
tions, was  received  with  reproaches  so  bitter  and  threats 
so  galling,  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  assembly,  that 
he  immediately  left  the  palace,  sent  his  resignation  to 
his  government,  and,  despite  all  efforts  of  the  German 
Emperor  and  the  Bavarian  King  to  appease  him,  refused 
to  remain  in  Berlin.  So  deeply  did  the  injustice  of  this 
treatment  affect  him  that,  although  the  Bavarian  mon- 
arch showed  approval  of  his  conduct  by  sending  him  as 
minister  to  Bussia,  he  lost  his  reason. 

Such  things  are  not  to  be  defended,  but  we  may  remem- 
ber that  they  resulted  mainly  from  excess  of  patriotic 
feeling,  and  we  may  feel  inclined  to  a  more  lenient  judg- 
ment as  we  recall  some  of  them.  Noteworthy  among 
these  was  a  scene  at  the  opening  reception  of  the  dele- 
gates to  the  Berlin  Conference.  They  were,  as  a  rule, 
the  most  eminent  statesmen  of  the  great  powers.  Of  the 
Turkish  delegates  one  was  a  German  by  birth  who  had 
gained  distinction  in  the  Turkish  army,  and  doubtless 
by  Turkish  methods.  Whatever  he  had  been  in  his  early 
life  in  Germany,  he  was  now  a  Pasha  of  high  degree, 
clad  with  all  diplomatic  rights  and  immunities,  and  he 
therefore  came  forward  with  his  colleagues  and  offered 


BISMARCK  523 

his  hand  to  the  Chancellor :  it  was  taken  and  shaken,  but, 
this  done,  Bismarck  immediately  ordered  water  and  a 
towel,  and  in  the  presence  of  the  assembly  washed  his 
hands.1 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that,  as  compared  with  his 
two  great  contemporaries  in  statesmanship,  he  had 
neither  the  full  consideration  for  his  adversaries  shown 
by  Cavour  nor  the  nobly  courteous  bearing  toward  them 
always  observed  by  Gladstone. 

Here  may  be  compared  the  general  methods  of  these 
three  great  contemporaries  in  dealing  with  legislative 
bodies.  Never  were  men  more  diversely  endowed. 
Gladstone  was  of  engaging  presence,  a  manner  that 
charmed  and  awed,  and  a  voice  that  enthralled  his  hear- 
ers; his  facts  and  arguments  were  wonderfully  mar- 
shaled and  lucidly  presented.  Cavour  was  stout, 
stumpy,  his  voice  not  usually  pleasing,  his  manner  that 
of  the  man  of  business,  showing  his  training  as  a 
civil  engineer,  his  arguments  plain,  matter  of  fact,  en- 
chained by  a  sort  of  mathematical  logic — yet  with  rare 
bursts  of  eloquence  all  the  more  effective  because  so  rare 
and  so  sincere.  Bismarck  was  overpowering  in  stature, 
huge  in  bulk,  with  an  air  of  military  command,  but  his 
voice  high-pitched  and  not  strong, — his  manner  rarely 
showing  any  especial  friendliness  toward  his  audience, — 
his  matter  often  loose,  diffuse,  grotesquely  egotistical, 
frequently  pungent,  and  at  times  insulting, — yet,  in 
crucial  periods,  gathering  his  audience,  as  it  were,  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand — as  when  he  said:  "We  Germans 
fear  God  and  naught  beside."  Compared  with  Glad- 
stone neither  Bismarck  nor  Cavour  was,  under  ordinary 
circumstances,  an  orator.  To  the  sonorous  periods  of 
Gladstone  and  his  superb  quotations  from  Virgil  and 

i  A  full  account  of  this  scene  was  given  to  the  present  writer  by  one 
of  the  delegates  to  the  Conference,  of  the  highest  standing,  who  was 
present. 


524  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

Lucretius  neither  of  the  two  continental  statesmen  were 
equal,  though  Bismarck  had  a  wonderful  knack  at  quot- 
ing Latin  maxims  and  peasant  proverbs,  and  both  Bis- 
marck and  Cavour  were  at  times,  in  their  differing  ways, 
able  to  reach  the  depths  of  their  hearers '  hearts  as  surely 
as  did  Gladstone.  Neither  of  the  continental  statesmen 
could  at  will  throw  such  a  charm  around  ordinary  sub- 
jects and  even  into  a  budget  as  could  the  great  English- 
man; yet  it  may  well  be  claimed  that  Gladstone  never 
touched  the  heart  of  the  whole  nation  as  deeply  as  did 
Cavour  in  his  defense  against  Garibaldi,  or  as  did  Bis- 
marck in  his  indemnity  speech.1 

Take  the  next  charge  against  Bismarck,  based  upon  the 
variations  of  his  political  policy, — upon  the  change  from 
mediaeval  devotion  to  Prussia  and  sympathy  with  Aus- 
tria to  support  of  German  constitutional  liberty  and 
unity — the  change  which  afterward  made  him  the  great- 
est advocate  of  all  he  had  formerly  opposed; — upon  the 
break,  still  later,  from  his  old  political  associates,  and  his 
passing  from  party  to  party  to  secure  support  for  his 
measures.  Yet  all  this  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  same 
course.  His  own  answers  to  this  charge  were  pithy.  He 
said,  "The  moment  the  interest  of  the  country  requires 
me  to  put  myself  in  contradiction  with  myself  I  shall  do 
it";  and  again,  "If  anybody  says  to  me,  'Twenty  years 
ago  you  and  I  were  of  one  mind ;  to-day  I  hold  the  same 
opinions  which  I  held  then,  and  you  exactly  the  oppo- 
site,' I  shall  answer  him,  'Yes;  twenty  years  ago  I  was  as 
wise  as  you  are  to-day;  now  I  am  wiser,  for  I  have  learnt 
something  in  the  mean  time.'  "  Nothing  is  more  clear 
than  that  changes  in  his  policy  resulted  from  changes  in 
his  opinions  as  to  what  was  best  for  the  nation.     It  should 

1  For  the  parliamentary  manner  and  methods  and  personal  characteris- 
tics of  Bismarck  and  Gladstone  the  present  writer  relies  mainly  upon  his 
own  recollections,  with  suggestions  from  those  who  stood  near  them.  As 
regards  Cavour  he  has  relied  entirely  on  the  testimony  of  his  immediate 
colleagues,  especially  of  Nigra,  Peruzzi,  and  Minghetti. 


BISMARCK  525 

be  kept  in  mind  that  lie  never,  after  he  took  the  reins  of 
power,  was  a  party  man.  He  was  wont  to  say  that  the 
only  members  of  his  party  were  King  William  and  him- 
self. Like  Gladstone,  he  made  a  complete  change  in  his 
political  opinions  during  his  progress  from  youth  to  full 
manhood.  Like  Cavour,  he  used  party  combinations  as 
seemed  to  him  best  for  the  state.  His  great  change  from 
the  National  Liberals  and  their  free-trade  theories  to  the 
Conservatives  and  their  protectionist  ideas  was  clearly 
the  result  of  devotion  to  what  he  considered  the  highest 
interests  of  his  country. 

But  there  are  other  charges  against  him  better 
grounded,  namely,  that  at  heart  he  disbelieved  in  rational 
liberty,  that  his  chosen  system  was  despotic  and  his  pre- 
ferred methods  autocratic,  that  he  was  ready  at  any 
provocation  to  cripple  or  even  destroy  constitutional 
freedom,  and  that  in  all  this  he  compared  unfavorably 
with  Cavour.  Any  believer  in  the  development  of  liberty 
by  liberty  finds  both  in  Cavour  and  in  Gladstone  a  loyalty 
to  constitutional  rights,  a  repugnance  to  despotism,  a 
faith  in  the  evolution  of  better  men  and  methods  in  an  en- 
vironment of  rational  freedom,  which  lift  them  above  Bis- 
marck. A  recent  writer  refers  to  the  well-known  scene 
at  Cavour 's  death-bed,  when  with  his  last  failing  breath 
he  pleaded  with  his  sovereign  for  constitutional  methods 
against  a  state  of  siege  and  for  patience  with  the  popula- 
tions of  lower  Italy  and  Sicily.  It  was,  indeed,  a  noble 
and  touching  exhibition  of  faith,  hope,  and  charity. 
That,  as  well  as  his  whole  career,  shows  Cavour  far  more 
in  sympathy  with  the  nobler  aspirations  of  humanity  than 
was  Bismarck,  and  an  antithesis  is  justly  made  between 
Cavour  as  an  apostle  of  liberty  and  Bismarck  as  the 
champion  of  authority.  But,  while  acknowledging  Ca- 
vour 's  superiority  in  this  respect,  may  not  something  still 
be  said  for  Bismarck?  In  our  own  republic,  where 
authoritv  seems  so  little  considered  that  the  first  of  the 


526  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

three  rights  asserted  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
— the  right  to  life — is  violated  more  frequently  and 
with  more  impunity  than  in  any  other  civilized  nation, 
and  where  in  so  many  fields  license  masked  as  liberty  has 
uprooted  so  much  of  reverence  for  law,  may  we  not  look 
even  with  some  admiration  upon  Bismarck's  sturdy  as- 
sertion of  authority? x 

Take  finally  that  which  puzzled  so  many  observers  of 
his  career — his  Religion.  To  leave  this  out  would  be  like 
leaving  out  the  religion  of  Cromwell.  It  requires  more 
than  mere  mention,  for  it  enters  largely  into  the  warp  and 
woof  of  his  whole  thought ;  it  merits  study  at  some  length, 
for  in  it  was  undoubtedly  rooted  that  sense  of  duty  so 
evident  throughout  his  life. 

The  definition  of  religion  as  "morality  touched  with 
emotion"  seems  in  his  case  futile.  His  religion  we  know 
more  fully  by  far  than  that  of  most  statesmen,  for  we 
have  pertinent  revelations  of  it  in  his  parliamentary  con- 
tests, in  his  utterances  in  times  of  stress  and  trial,  and  in 
his  private  letters  to  those  who  were  nearest  and  dearest 
to  him.  In  one  of  these  he  says  regarding  his  early  life, 
"Many  an  hour  did  I  spend  in  hopeless  despondency,  be- 
lieving that  my  own  and  other  people's  existence  was 
aimless  and  useless,  perhaps  only  an  accidental  emana- 
tion of  creation,  rising  and  disappearing  as  dust  from 
rolling  wheels."  Later  we  have  frequent  reference  in 
his  letters  to  his  wife  to  a  complete  change  in  his  whole 
way  of  looking  at  the  world — manly  expressions  of  con- 

i  For  an  admirable  comparison  between  Cavour  and  Bismarck  as  re- 
gards political  characteristics,  see  W.  R.  Thayer,  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  March,  1909.  For  the  statistics  of  capital  crime  in  our  own  re- 
public during  the  last  fifteen  years,  showing  an  increase  in  the  number 
of  homicides  during  that  period  from  about  three  thousand  to  about 
ten  thousand  a  year  and  the  severe  punishment  of  less  than  one  in 
seventy  guilty  of  homicide  during  recent  years,  see  the  statistical  num- 
bers of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  issued  on  the  last  day  of  each  year  during  the 
same  period. 


BISMARCK  527 

trition  for  the  excesses  of  his  early  life  and  of  aspirations 
for  a  better  future. 

With  these  he  at  times  mingles  theological  discussions, 
notably  one  on  ''faith  and  works,"  quotes  numerous  pas- 
sages to  show  the  value  of  works,  flatly  takes  ground 
against  Luther,  who  in  his  zeal  for  faith  had  called  the 
Epistle  of  St.  James  "a  straw  epistle,"  and  says  "I  find 
the  Epistle  of  James  a  glorious  book."  He  had  the  cour- 
age of  his  convictions.  In  his  reminiscences  he  gives  a 
conversation  between  himself  and  the  Prince  Regent, 
afterward  the  Emperor  William  I.  The  Prince  had  ap- 
plied to  a  certain  prominent  man  the  word  "Pietist." 
Those  who,  like  the  present  writer,  remember  Berlin  so- 
cial life  in  "the  Fifties"  will  remember  well  how  in  good, 
sound  German  families  the  word  Pietist  connoted  all  that 
was  unctuously  hypocritical.  On  the  occasion  referred 
to,  Bismarck  instantly  defended  "Pietism,"  called  His 
Highness  to  account,  and  put  him  to  confusion.1 

He  never  shows  any  of  that  reticence  regarding  reli- 
gious belief  and  that  tendency  to  fall  back  upon  a  single 
generality  so  common  with  Cavour.  Much  less  did  he 
show  any  of  Gladstone's  liking  for  fine-spun  metaphysics. 

In  letters  to  his  mother-in-law  he  constantly  refers  to 
his  religious  feelings  in  terms  much  like  those  used  by  the 
Anglican  "Evangelicals."  These  letters  show  that, 
while  during  his  university  life  he  had  given  up  the 
prayers  of  his  childhood,  he  now  resumed  them.  During 
a  journey  upon  the  Ehine  he  carried  the  New  Testament 
in  his  pocket ;  during  the  French  war  he  was  wont  to  read 
the  daily  texts  of  Scripture  published  by  the  Moravians, 
and  it  was  noted  by  those  who  went  into  his  room  imme- 
dately  after  he  had  hurriedly  left  his  bed  to  meet  the  Em- 
peror Napoleon,  at  Sedan,  that  at  his  bedside  lay  open  a 

i  For  Bismarck's  dialogue  with  the  future  Emperor  on  "Pietism,"  see 
Bismarck,  Reflections  and  Reminiscences,  English  translation,  Tauchnitz 
edition,  vol.  iii,  pp.  224,  225. 


528  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

book  of  devotion  which  he  had  been  reading  the  night 
before. 

In  one  of  his  letters  to  his  wife,  he  says,  "Good  night, 
my  dear.  It  strikes  twelve.  I  will  go  to  bed  and  read  yet 
the  second  chapter  of  Second  Peter.  I  do  this  now  sys- 
tematically, and  after  I  have  finished  Peter  I  am  going 
to  read  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews."  And  here  there  is 
a  characteristic  Bismarck  touch:  speaking  of  his  New 
Testament  reading,  he  says,  "I  might  be  willing  to  feed 
mine  enemy  when  he  is  starving,  but  to  bless  him — this 
would  be  merely  perfunctory,  if  I  could  do  it  at  all." 
Again  comes  a  more  intimate  statement — "There  is  no 
need  of  reminding  me  to  remember  our  dear  little  Mary 
in  my  prayers.     I  do  so  every  day." 

Even  in  the  most  trying  periods  of  his  life  we  note  that 
it  was  his  wont  to  partake  of  the  Lord's  Supper  twice  a 
year  and  to  prepare  for  it  by  reading  and  prayer.  And 
yet  even  in  this  was  shown  the  old  Bismarck  temper. 
During  one  of  his  parliamentary  contests  came  his  duel 
with  the  Prussian  orator,  Vincke :  his  pastor  sought  to  dis- 
suade him  from  it,  but  Bismarck  overcame  him  in  argu- 
ment and  forced  him,  much  against  his  will,  not  only  to 
pray  with  him  but  to  administer  the  Communion  to  him. 
Characteristic  is  the  account  which  Bismarck  himself 
gave  of  this  duel  in  one  of  his  letters  to  his  mother-in-law. 
He  says,  "I  believe  it  was  truly  wholesome  for  my  entire 
life  that  I  felt  myself  so  near  to  death,  and  that  I  pre- 
pared for  it.  I  know  that  you  do  not  agree  with  my  views 
on  this  point,  but  never  did  I  feel  myself  so  firmly  believ- 
ing and  trusting  and  so  fully  resigned  to  God's  will  as  at 
the  time  of  this  duel.  My  adversary  offered  to  drop  the 
whole  matter,  if  I  would  declare  that  I  was  sorry  for  what 
I  said.  As  I  was  unable  to  do  this  in  accordance  with 
truth,  we  took  our  places,  fired  and  missed,  both.  May 
God  forgive  me  the  grievous  sin  that  I  did  not  at  once 
recognize  His  grace ;  but  I  cannot  deny  that  when  I  saw, 


BISMARCK  529 

through  the  smoke,  my  opponent  standing  upright,  a  cer- 
tain feeling  of  discomfort  made  it  impossible  for  me  to 
join  in  the  general  jubilation.  I  was  ready  to  continue 
the  fight ;  but,  as  I  was  not  the  offended  party,  I  had  noth- 
ing to  say.  ...  I  never  doubted  for  a  moment  that  I 
had  to  meet  my  antagonist ;  but  I  was  not  clear  in  my  own 
mind  whether  I  should  fire  at  him.  I  did  it  without  mal- 
ice, and  missed." 

Over  ten  years  later  he  challenged  Professor  Virchow, 
the  eminent  pathologist,  and,  when  a  Christian  friend  ex- 
postulated with  him,  wrote  as  follows:  "As  regards  the 
Virchow  matter  I  have  passed  those  years  when  men  con- 
sult with  flesh  and  blood  on  such  things.  If  I  risk  my  life 
for  anything,  I  do  it  in  that  faith  which  I  have  obtained 
and  strengthened  in  long  and  serious  struggles,  but  in 
sincere  and  humble  prayer  before  God,  which  cannot  be 
upset  by  word  of  man." 

Curious  is  it  to  note  that,  while  at  Frankfort  he  was 
fighting  the  Austrian  ambassadors  to  the  Confederation 
at  every  point,  threatening  war  and  meaning  it,  risking 
duels  with  Prokesch,  Rechberg,  and  others,  utterly  fear- 
less and  apparently  reckless,  he  was,  to  the  religious  moni- 
tions of  his  wife,  as  given  in  her  letters,  entirely  docile. 
She  had  some  doubts  in  regard  to  the  sort  of  Protestant- 
ism he  might  find  at  Frankfort  and  therefore  urged  him 
to  attend  a  strictly  Lutheran  church.  He  reassures  her 
and  says,  "Day  before  yesterday  I  attended  the  Lutheran 
church  here, — the  pastor  not  a  particularly  intelligent 
man,  but  a  believer.  The  audience  besides  myself  con- 
sisted of  exactly  twenty-two  women."  More  strange 
still  sounds  the  name  of  one  pastor  whom  he  heard  and 
with  whom  he  conversed,  though  he  tells  his  wife  that  he 
"found  not  much  comfort  in  him."  This  pastor  became 
one  of  the  most  famous  men  in  Germany, — laughed  at 
from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Alps,  and  from  the  Rhine  to 
the  Niemen, — the  favorite  quarry  of  the  caricaturists, 

34 


530  BISMARCK 

— Pastor  Knak, — as  famous  for  his  preachments  on  the 
necessity  of  believing  that  the  sun  moves  round  the  earth, 
according  to  the  Scriptures,  as,  at  about  the  same  period, 
was  our  eminent  colored  compatriot,  the  Rev.  John  Jas- 
per, for  his  pulpit  proofs  that  "the  sun  do  move." 
Toward  the  end  of  his  career  Bismarck  showed  a  tend- 
ency to  broader  churchman  ship.  He  became  rather  un- 
favorable to  the  old  Lutheran  theologians:  called  them 
"little  tyrants"  and  said  that  "each  pastor  was  a  little 
pope."  He  objected  to  Calvin  especially  on  account  of 
the  burning  of  Servetus.  He  gave  his  adhesion  to  Fred- 
erick the  Great's  famous  declaration,  "Let  every  one  go 
to  heaven  in  his  own  way ' ' — and,  in  defining  Christianity 
practically,  he  spoke  of  it  as  "not  the  creed  of  the  Court 
Chaplains."  * 

In  comparing  Bismarck's  religion  with  that  of  the  two 
other  great  statesmen  of  his  time  we  find  it  very  differ- 
ent from  either.  Neither  in  his  arguments  nor  in  his 
statements  was  there  any  of  that  fine-spun  reasoning 
which  made  Thomas  Acland  caution  Gladstone  to  avoid 
the  methods  of  Maurice.  Nor  was  Bismarck  capable  of 
any  such  intellectual  process  as  that  which  led  Gladstone 
to  surmise  some  occult  connection  between  Neptune's 
trident  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity.  As  to  Cavour, 
the  mild  deistical  statements  made  in  his  early  life  and 
his  nominal  conformity  to  dominant  opinion  on  his  death- 
bed were  as  far  as  possible  from  the  robust  Lutheranism 
of  Bismarck,  even  when,  as  in  his  last  years,  it  had 
become  "exceeding  broad."2 

i  For  an  excellent  summing  up  of  Bismarck's  religious  opinions  and 
relations,  as  presented  in  the  letters  to  his  wife  and  sister,  and  in  various 
other  documents,  see  Prof.  Adolph  Spaeth,  Bismarck  as  a  Christian, 
and,  for  some  broader  tendencies  in  his  later  life,  see  Busch,  Our  Chancel- 
lor, chap.  ii. 

2  For  Gladstone's  suspicion  of  a  mysterious  connection  between  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  Neptune's  trident,  see  the  Juvenilis  Mundi. 
For  Cavour's  early  religious  views  and  their  later  development,  see  a  let- 


BISMARCK  531 

His  daily  life  was  far  from  Puritanical.  He  said: 
"The  Sunday  observance  in  England  and  America  is, 
after  all,  a  fearful  tyranny";  and,  when  Lothar  Bucher 
defended  the  quiet  English  Sunday,  Bismarck  said:  "I 
am  not  against  observing  the  Lord's  day.  On  the  con- 
trary, as  a  landed  proprietor,  I  do  for  it  whatever  I  can. 
.  .  .  No  work  ought  to  be  done  on  Sunday,  not  so 
much  because  it  is  against  God's  commandment  as  on 
account  of  the  men  who  need  recreation."  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Bismarck  allowed  no  work  upon  his  estates  on 
Sunday  that  could  be  deferred,  and,  when  Ambassador 
at  Frankfort,  he  avoided  using  his  carriage  on  Sunday 
in  order  not  to  keep  his  servants  from  church. 

During  the  war  with  France,  at  the  Eothschild  seat, 
Ferrieres,  in  the  presence  of  a  number  of  men,  mostly 
sceptics,  he  spoke  as  follows:  "If  I  did  not  obey  my 
God  and  rely  on  Him,  I  would  certainly  not  care  for 
earthly  matters.  .  .  .  Why  should  I  worry  and  trou- 
ble myself  and  toil,  exposing  myself  to  embarrassments 
and  ill  treatment,  if  I  had  not  the  feeling  that  for  God's 
sake  I  am  bound  to  do  my  duty?  If  I  did  not  believe  in 
divine  providence,  which  has  destined  this  German  nation 
for  something  great  and  good,  I  would  at  once  give  up 
my  position  as  a  diplomat,  or  I  would  never  have  under- 
taken it. ' ' 

Three  years  later,  in  the  Prussian  Diet,  he  said: 
"Whenever  the  foundations  of  the  state  were  attacked 
by  the  barricade  and  by  republicans,  I  considered  it  my 
duty  to  stand  in  the  breach.  .  .  .  This  I  am  com- 
manded to  do  by  my  Christianity  and  my  faith." 

Mention  may  here  be  made  of  Bismarck's  family  life. 
It  was  exemplary.  Nothing  in  it  clouded  his  career  like 
that  which  stained  the  life  of  his  eminent  predecessor, 
Hardenberg.     His  relations  with  wife,  sister,  and  chil- 

ter  written  by   him   to  his   aunt,    and   other   documents,   given   in   Berti, 
Cavour  avanti  18-^8,  capit.  xix. 


532  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

dren,  as  revealed  in  his  letters,  were  ideal,  and  his  whole 
life  at  home,  as  known  to  his  vast  circle  of  friends,  had 
a  peculiar  beauty  which  impressed  every  guest,  and  in- 
deed influenced  favorably  the  moral  condition  of  the 
Empire.1 

In  the  very  thick  of  his  Frankfort  period,  in  all  its 
turbulence,  he  wrote:  "The  happy  marriage  and  the 
children  that  God  has  given  me  are  to  me  like  the 
rainbow,  the  token  and  assurance  of  peace  after  the  flood 
of  desolation  and  loneliness  that  covered  my  soul  in  for- 
mer years." 

In  his  temperament  there  was  a  strange  mingling  of 
the  Stoic  and  the  Epicurean.  No  one  could  meet  more 
sturdily  opposition,  trial,  and  hardship,  whether  in  war 
or  peace ;  yet  there  were  in  him  the  appetites  of  his  Baltic 
ancestors.  Like  them  he  was  a  valiant  trencherman  and 
held  his  own  at  table  against  all  comers.  For  this  he 
paid  a  heavy  penalty.  During  the  last  years  of  his  life 
he  suffered  from  severe  neuralgic  pains  in  his  face  and 
especially  in  his  mouth,  so  that  it  was  almost  impossible 
for  him  to  open  it;  jestingly  he  used  to  say  that  this  was 
quite  natural,  since  with  his  mouth  he  had  sinned  most, 
in  eating,  drinking,  and  speaking.  He  was  extremely 
fond  of  plovers'  eggs,  of  which  he  was  wont  to  consume 
fifteen  at  a  single  meal,  and  once  he  astounded  the  wait- 
ers of  a  restaurant  by  eating  one  hundred  and  seventy 
oysters.  His  excessive  indulgence  at  table  was  so  notori- 
ous that  his  estate,  Kniephof,  was  spoken  of  as  Kneiphof 
(tippling  court).  When  he  complained  of  illness  and 
wretchedness  to  his  old  associate  Gneist,  and  Gneist  sent 
him  a  dozen  bottles  of  strong  Burgundy,  advising  him 
to  take  a  couple  of  glasses  of  it  daily  with  dinner,  as  a 
tonic,  Bismarck  later  complained  that  it  had  done  him  no 

i  For  striking  pictures  of  his  life  at  Frankfort  and  elsewhere,  see  Mot- 
ley's Correspondence ;  also  Keudell  and  Abeken  everywhere. 


BISMARCK  533 

good;  and  when  Gneist  asked  him  how  he  had  taken  it, 
he  said,  "Two  bottles  of  it  daily  at  dinner,  as  you  ad- 
vised me."  "Worthy  of  note  perhaps,  in  connection  with 
this,  is  the  fact  that  among  the  effects  sent,  after  his 
resignation,  from  the  Chancellor's  Palace  in  Berlin  to  his 
Friedrichsruh  estate,  were  thirteen  thousand  bottles  of 
wine, — mainly  gifts, — from  the  choicest  vintages  in  all 
parts  of  Middle  and  South  Germany. 

But  there  was  survival  in  him  of  gentle  traits.  No- 
where was  he  more  happy  than  in  his  woods.  For  his 
finest  trees  he  had  a  personal  affection,  and  for  the  birds 
among  them  he  had  an  eye  like  Luther's — speaking 
quaintly  regarding  them,  as  did  Luther.  Coming  in  one 
day,  at  Friedrichsruh,  he  said:  "The  starlings  held  a 
public  meeting  to-day,  probably  in  connection  with  the 
coming  of  spring,"  and  then  he  described  whimsically 
their  doings  and  probable  sayings.  Another  day,  at 
Varzin,  he  chronicled  the  doings  of  the  rooks  in  the  tree 
tops — how  they  teach  their  children  to  fly — take  them 
to  the  seaside  for  change  of  air  and  diet — and,  "as 
people  of  position,  take  a  winter  town  residence" — in; 
the  neighboring  church  towers.  Comical  was  it  that  one 
morning  at  Gastein,  sauntering  in  the  park,  he  became 
so  interested  in  the  household  economy  of  sundry  birds 
which  nested  there  that  he  utterly  forgot  and  entirely 
missed  an  interview  between  the  Emperors  of  Germany 
and  Austria  at  which  his  presence  was  especially  im- 
portant. 

Throughout  his  life  within  doors  there  was  one  espe- 
cially soothing  influence, — his  love  for  music,  and  above 
all  for  the  music  of  Beethoven.  His  wife's  playing  was 
good  and  he  greatly  enjoyed  it.  It  seems  to  have  helped 
him  at  some  times  when  the  strain  upon  his  nerves  was 
almost  beyond  endurance.  Cynics  were  wont  to  say  that 
the  great  hold  which  his  eminent  ambassador  to  Rome, 


534  SEVEN  GREAT  STATESMEN 

von  Iveudell,  had  upon  him  was  due  not  so  much  to 
KeudelPs  diplomacy  as  to  his  skill  in  interpreting  the 
masterpieces  of  German  music.1 

A  recent  writer  has  somewhat  brilliantly  sustained  a 
thesis  that  the  only  way  of  explaining  Bismarck's  life 
is  by  considering  him  a  humorist.     Quaint  humor  he 
showed  when,  speaking  of  Germans  who  hesitated  to  come 
under  Prussian  leadership,  he  said:     " Prussian  govern- 
ment is  like  a  flannel  shirt — unpleasant  at  first,  but  very 
comfortable  afterward."     Grim  humor,  also,  he  showed 
early,  even  in  his  old  parliamentary  struggles :  to  a  revo- 
lutionary opponent  who  proposed — "If  your  party  con- 
quers you  shall  take  me  under  your  wing,  and  if  my  side 
gets  the  upper  hand  I  will  do  as  much  for  you,"  he 
answered,  "If  your  party  wins,  life  will  not  be  worth 
living,  and  if  we  win,  then  hanging  shall  be  the  order 
of  the  day — but  with  all  politeness,  up  to  the  very  foot 
of  the  gallows."     Caustic  was  his  wit  when  he  reminded 
"the  Augustenburger "  that  "Prussia  could  wring  the 
necks  of  the  chickens  she  had  hatched."     Cruel  was  his 
humor  when  he  made  the  treaty  of  Versailles,  and  espe- 
cially when  those  two  eminent  orators,  Thiers  and  Jules 
Favre,  tried  to  overcome  him  with  pathetic  eloquence.2 
There  was  not  unfrequently  a  melancholy  chord  in  his 
utterances,  which  when  swept  by  wit  gave  a  humorous 
cast  to  proceedings  otherwise  dull  or  solemn;  but  the 
scene  when  Bismarck  thought  that  he  had  failed  to  pre- 
vent the  king  from  entering  Vienna  in  triumph,  as  given 
us  by  the  faithful  Busch,  reveals  abysses  of  far  deeper 
feeling. 

Wit  there  was — coruscating  especially  through  his 
letters  and  table  talk;  humor  there  was — glowing  even 
through  despatches;  pungent  sayings  there  were,  which 

i  For  his  love  of  life  in  the  open  air,  see  Busch,  Whitman,  and  others; 
for  his  fondness  of  music,  see  especially  Keudcll. 
2  See  Chapter  II  of  this  essay. 


BISMARCK  535 

flashed  through  the  nation, — many  of  them  cynical  and 
some  of  them  unjust,  but  not  a  few  of  them  warming 
the  hearts,  clearing  the  eyes,  strengthening  the  arms  of 
patriots  everywhere.  Yet  beneath  all,  throughout  his 
entire  work,  to  the  end  of  his  service,  was  a  deep  serious- 
ness which  could  only  come  from  a  sense  of  duty.  This 
was  the  solid  basis  of  that  statesmanship  which  at  last 
brought  Germany,  and  indeed  Europe,  out  of  a  chaos  of 
unreason,  and  gave  Bismarck  his  place  in  history  as  the 
greatest  German  since  Luther. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Acton,  Lord,  on  Napoleon's  greatness, 
515,   517 

Africa,  fall  of  Ismail  Pasha,  the 
Egyptian  Khedive,  479;  Bismarck's 
attitude  toward  African  questions, 
479 ;  world  conference  on  African  af- 
fairs at  Berlin,  in  1885,  480 

Agrippa,    Cornelius,    141 

Alexander  of  Battenberg,  his  marriage 
to  a  Hohenzollern  princess  prevented 
by  Bismarck,    504 

Alexander  I,  of  Russia,  sought  aid  of 
Stein  in  war  against  Napoleon,  297- 
304 

Alsace-Lorraine,  Stein  and  Bismarck  in 
relation  to,  307,  492;  restored  to 
Germany,   465,   467 

American  Revolution  prophesied  by 
Turgot  in  1750,  174;  attitude  of 
American  thinkers  toward  independ- 
ence,  174 

Andrassy,  Austrian  Chancellor,  influence 
of  Bismarck  in  the  appointment  of, 
471 

Antwerp,  massacre  at,  56 

Apuzzo,   Archbishop,    337,   376,   377 

Arbitration,  germ  of,  planted  in  modern 
thought   by   Grotius,    92,    93 
See    also    Grotius:    International    law; 
International  Peace  Conferences. 

Arminianism  and  Calvinism,  struggle  be- 
tween, in  the  Netherlands,   65-72 

Arndt  and  his  "Spirit  of  the  Times," 
296,    393,    395 

Arnim,  Harry  von,  German  Ambassador 
at  Paris,  his  struggle  -with  Bismarck, 
473 

Augsburg,  treaty  of,  56,  156 

Austria,  battle  of  Austerlitz,  peace  of 
Pressburg,  249 ;  war  with  Napoleon, 
295;  overcome  at  Wagram,  297;  rise 
of  her  power  in  Italy,  323;  Metter- 
nich's  contempt  for  Italy,  323,  338, 
342 ;  political  catechisms  issued  by 
the  government,  331;  "agent  of  the 
Holy  Alliance,"  337,  339;  her  tyran- 
ny in  Italy,  341,  342,  344;  revolu- 
tions against  Austria  in  Milan  and 
Venice,  358,  361,  362;  Italy  and 
France  win  in  war  against  Austria, 
371;  treachery  of  Napoleon  III  and 
the  treaty  of  Villafranca,  371,  373; 
revolutions  in  southern  Italy,  374; 
Italian  independence,  385;  conditions 
after  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  391; 
public  instruction  in  hands  of  priest- 
hood, 392 ;  power  in  Federation  Diet 
at  Frankfort-on-Main,  394;  effect  of 
French  Revolution  of  1848,  396;  Met- 
ternich  driven  from  power,  396;  vari- 
ous revolutions,  39S:  her  supremacy 
in  the  Frankfort  Diet,  418-420;  her 
part   in   the   Crimean   War,   421,    422, 

539 


424;  Bismarck's  indictment  of  her 
aims  and  methods,  424;  victories  of 
the  French  and  Italians  at  Magenta 
and  Solferino  and  the  peace  of  Villa- 
franca, 425 ;  Schleswig-Holstein  claims, 
431;  conquest  of  territory  by  Prussia 
and  Austria,  432-434;  treaty  of  Vien- 
na, 433;  of  Gastein,  435;  Seven. 
Weeks'  War  with  Prussia,  441;  vic- 
tory of  Prussia  at  Sadowa,  442 ; 
treaty  of  Prague,  443;  Bismarck's 
policy  toward  Austria,  442,  444; 
"Triple  alliance"  of  Germany,  Aus- 
tria and  Italy,  476,  477 
See  also  Seven  Weeks'  War. 
Azeglio,  Massimo  d',  "  The  Latest  Cases 
in  the  Romagna, "   347 

Balbo,  Cesare,  "The  Hopes  of  Italy," 
347 

Bancroft,  George,  his  influence  upon 
Bismarck,    446 

Barneveld,  John  of,  statesman  of  the 
Netherlands;  at  court  of  Henry  IV  of 
France,  58;  opposed  to  Prince  Mau- 
rice of  Nassau,  67,  68 ;  imprison- 
ment,  69 :   execution,   70 

Baronius,   Sarpi's  opponent,   19 

Bartholomew's,  Massacre  of  Saint,  56; 
celebration  of,  at  Rome,  by  Gregory 
XIII,   75 

Basle,   treaty  of,   247 

Beaumont,  Prevost  de,  207 

Beccaria's  treatise  on  "  Crimes  and 
Punishments,"    101,    330 

Bellarmine,  Sarpi's  strongest  and  no- 
blest opponent,  7,  14,  19;  warned 
Sarpi   against  assassins,   23 

Benedetti,  French  Ambassador  at  the 
Prussian  court,   450,  453,   455,   456 

Benefices,  ecclesiastical,  Sarpi's  history 
of,    28 

Berlin,  burgomastership  of,  274;  United 
Prussian    Diet    at,    395 

Berlin,  Congress  of,  in  1878,  for  settle- 
ment of  Eastern  question,  474,   475 

Berlin,  University  of,  established  by 
Frederick  William  III,  133;  relation 
of    Von    Humboldt    to,    296 

Bertola,  Aurelio,  his  "Philosophy  of 
History,"  his  prophecy,   319 

Bertolli,  his  efforts  to  extinguish  mem- 
ory of  Sarpi,  38-41;  his  imprison- 
ment in  Venice.   41 

Beust,  Austrian  Chancellor,  471 

Bismarck-Schbnhausen,  Otto  von,  1815- 
1898;  his  ancestors,  399-402;  his 
birth  and  early  education,  402;  his 
confirmation  by  Schleiermacher,  403 ; 
his  facility  in  English,  403;  his  life  at 
the  University  of  Gottingen,  404;  his 
friendship  with  John  Lothrop  Motley, 


540 


INDEX 


404,  405;  his  student  work  in  Berlin, 
406;  and  admittance  to  the  bar,  405; 
became  official  law  reporter  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  406;  military  service  in  the 
Royal  Guard,  406;  his  interest  in 
agriculture,  407 ;  his  passion  for  read- 
ing, 408;  as  a  letter  writer,  408,  409, 
412;  change  in  his  reiigious  and  po- 
litical theories,  409,  410;  in  1847  en- 
tered the  first  General  Diet  of  Prus- 
sia, 410;  his  belief  in  absolutism, 
411;  his  marriage,  410,  412;  in  1849 
a  leader  in  the  Second  Chamber  of 
the  Prussian  Diet,  413;  advocated 
increase  in  powers  of  the  monarchy, 
414;  in  the  Erfurt  parliament  of 
1850,  416;  the  champion  of  Austrian 
supremacy,  416;  in  1851  appointed 
Prussian  Ambassador  to  the  Germanic 
Diet  at  Frankfort,  417;  his  attitude 
toward  Austrian  supremacy  in  the 
Diet,  418-421;  neutrality  of  Prussia 
during  Crimean  War,  421;  gratitude 
of  Russia,  422;  hostility  of  other 
countries,  421,  422;  his  visits  at 
various  courts  of  Europe,  423 ;  first 
meeting  with  Napoleon  III  in  1855, 
at  Paris,  423;  sent  to  St.  Petersburg 
as  Ambassador,  424;  his  indictment 
of  Austrian  aims  and  methods,  424 ; 
William  I  becomes  king,  425;  makes 
Bismarck  Ambassador  at  Paris,  426; 
more  intimate  acquaintance  with  Na- 
poleon III,  their  estimates  of  each 
other,  427;  in  1862  Bismarck  became 
Prime  Minister,  entered  desperate 
parliamentary  struggle  and  levied 
taxes  without  a  budget,  427-429;  his 
policy  of  "blood  and  iron,"  428; 
hatred  of  him,  429;  alliance  of  Prus- 
sia with  Russia  against  Poland,  430; 
the  Schleswig-Holstein  question,  431; 
Prussia  and  Austria  conquer  the 
Danes,  432,  433:  their  disnute  over 
territory,  433,  434;  the  Treaty  of 
Gastein,  and  division  of  territory, 
435;  made  "Count  Bismarck,"  436; 
seeks  co-operation  of  Italy  in  war 
against  Austria,  436;  meets  Napoleon 
III  at  Biarritz,  438;  Bismarck's  war 
plans  opposed  by  King  and  by  Par- 
liament, 440;  his  life  attempted,  441; 
war  with  Austria,  441 ;  victory  of 
Sadowa,  442;  Bismarck's  policy  in 
regard  to  Austria,  443 ;  treaty  of 
Prague,  443;  his  policy  toward  Aus- 
tria, 444;  his  popularity,  445;  his 
efforts  for  the  consolidation  of  the 
North  German  Confederation,  445- 
450;  influence  of  George  Bancroft 
upon  his  ideas  of  government,  446; 
his  refusal  to  recognize  American 
Confederate  States,  447;  France  «eeks 
pretext  for  war  with  Germany,  450- 
451;  the  Hohenzollern  candidacy  for 
the  Spanish  throne  finally  provokes 
war,  452-458;  editing  of  King 
William's  telegram,  457;  war  with 
France  and  victory  at  Sedan,  459- 
461;  proclamation  of  the  German 
Empire  in  the  palace  of  Versailles, 
463,  464;  negotiations  for  peace, 
464-406;  treaty  of  Frankfort,  467; 
the  constitution  of  the  German  Em- 
pire, 467;  Bismarck  made  Chancel- 
lor, 409 ;   his  efforts  for  peace  among 


the  nations,  470;  his  influence  in  the 
Austrian  cabinet,  471;  his  dealings 
with  Don  Carlos  in  Spain,  472;  with 
fanatical  pulpits  of  France,  472 ;  with 
Turkey  for  the  murder  of  the  German 
Consul,  473;  with  Von  Arnim,  Ger- 
man Ambassador  at  Paris,  473 ;  presi- 
dent of  the  Congress  of  Berlin  in  1878 
for  settlement  of  the  Eastern  Ques- 
tion, 474,  475;  ill  feeling  between 
Bismarck  and  Gortschakoff,  475;  al- 
liance of  Germany  and  Austria,  476; 
"Triple  alliance"  of  Germany,  Aus- 
tria, and  Italy,  477;  his  dealings  with 
Great  Britain  and  African  questions, 
479,  480;  his  colonial  policy,  480-482; 
his  attitude  toward  the  United  States 
and  the  Edward  Lasker  incident,  482- 
484;  six  years'  conflict  with  the  Ro- 
man church,  485-492;  the  "Pulpit 
Laws,"  467;  Jesuits  expelled,  488; 
"  Falk  Laws,"  488;  attempts  on  the- 
life  of  Bismarck,  489;  death  cf  Pius 
IX,  490;  understanding  with  Leo 
XIII,  492;  his  policy  as  to  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  492  ;  the  reestablishment  of 
the  University  of  Strasburg,  493;  his 
attitude  toward  the  maintenance  of 
the  German  army,  494;  new  codes  of 
law  and  a  supreme  court  for  the  em- 
pire, 495 ;  his  efforts  to  secure  fi- 
nancial independence  for  the  empire, 
497;  new  coinage  adopted,  498;  his 
dealings  with  Socialism,  499;  his 
change  from  free-trade  to  protection, 
500;  his  system  of  compulsory  state 
insurance,  501;  his  activity  through, 
the  press,  502,  503 ;  holds  the  confi- 
dence of  Frederick  III,  504;  his 
break  with  William  II,  506-512;  his 
death,  512;  national  monument  at 
Berlin,  513;  his  historic  personality, 
514;  his  physical  qualities,  514;  his 
insight  and  foresight,  514,  515;  his 
breadth  of  vision,  515;  comparison 
with  Napoleon,  515,  516,  517_,  521; 
his  great  courage,  418,  51C;  his  cau- 
tion, 517;  charged  with  deluding  his 
adversaries,  518;  his  truthfulness, 
518-521;  his  frankness,  518,  519;  his 
conversation  with  Countess  Hohenthal, 
519;  the  charge  of  brutality,  522; 
his  excess  of  patriotic  feeling,  522; 
comparison  with  Gladstone  and 
Cavour,  386,  520,  523-525,  527,  530; 
with  Stein,  313-315;  variations  of 
his  political  policy,  524;  charge  that 
he  disbelieved  in  rational  liberty, 
525;  his  religion,  526-531;  his  fam- 
ily life,  531-533;  his  love  of  outdoor 
life,  533;  of  music,  533;  his  wit  and 
humor,  534;  his  sense  of  duty,  535: 
the  "  greatest  German  since  Luther,' 
535 

Boncerf  s  "  The  Inconveniences  of 
Feudal  Rights."    222 

Borromeo,  his  acquaintance  with  Snrpi,  6 

Brandenburg,  Great  Elector  of,  his  ef- 
forts for  pence  between  Protestants, 
117 

Brienne,  Lomenie  de,  his  career,  177 

Bruno,  Giordano,  burned  at  Rome,  25, 
26;   his  statue   at  Rome,   52 

Brunswick  Manifesto,  246 

Burgomastership  of  the  city  of  Borlin, 
274 


INDEX 


541 


Burscbenschaft,  a  German  student  or- 
ganization for  liberty  and  unity,   393 

Calixt,  George,  117 

Calonne,  French  Minister  of  Finance, 
232 

Calvinism,  struggle  with  Arminianism  in 
the  Netherlands,  65-72 ;  with  Luther- 
anism  in  Germany,  114-118;  belief 
in    witchcraft,    143 

Campo  Pormio,   treaty  of,   322 

Capella,  Martianus,  his  encyclopaedia  re- 
vised by   Grotius,    57 

Carbonari,  a  secret  society  of  Italy, 
341,   368 

Carpzov,   Benedict,    147 

Catechisms,  political,  for  use  in  schools 
of   Italy,    331-337,   377 

Catholic  church 

Barbarism  of,   as  regards  torture  and 

ecclesiastical   offences,    16 
Conflict  with  Germany  and  Bismarck, 
485-492;      "Pulpit     Laws,"     487; 
Jesuits      expelled     from      Germany, 
488;     "  Falk    Laws,"     488;     death 
of     Pius     IX,     490;     settlement     of 
difficulties   by   Leo   XIII,    490-492 
Council   of    Trent,    330 
Ecclesiastical     benefices,     history     of, 

by    Sarpi,    28 
Punishment     of     criminals,     immunity 
of  the  clergy,  Sarpi 's  books  on,  28, 
29 
Temporal   power,    evolution   of,    7 
See  also  Papacy. 

Cavour,  Camillo  Benso,  1810-1861, 
birth,  ancestry,  and  education,  351; 
an  engineer  at  Genoa,  352;  banished 
to  mountain  districts,  352;  a  farmer, 
1831-1848,  352,  353;  established 
mills  and  a  railway,  353 ;  under  sus- 
picion of  Italy  and  of  Austria,  353, 
354;  his  prophetic  dreams  of  himself 
as  minister,  354;  travel  and  study  in 
foreign  lauds,  354;  his  active  pro- 
motion of  railways  for  Italy,  355; 
founded  newspaper,  356,  362;  his 
belief  in  evolution  rather  than  revo- 
lution, 357,  369;  his  change  of 
mind  and  utterances  in  favor  of  war, 
359;  became  Minister  of  Agriculture, 
Commerce,  and  the  Navy,  362,  363 ; 
his  correspondence  with  Countess  de 
Circourt,  356:  visited  France  and  Eng- 
land and  met  Napoleon  III,  363  ;  attacks 
by  his  enemies,  364,  365;  his  policy 
concerning  the  Crimean  War,  victory 
of  Italian  army,  366,  367;  Piedmont 
represented  by  Cavour  at  the  Con- 
gress of  Paris,  367;  secured  personal 
alliance  with  Napoleon  III,  368;  hos- 
tility of  Italy's  fanatical  element, 
368,  369;  secret  agreement  with 
Napoleon  III  against  Austria,  369, 
370;  war  with  Austria,  370,  371; 
treachery  of  Napoleon  and  his  treaty 
with  Austria  at  Villafranca,  371;  re- 
tirement of  Cavour  from  the  ministry, 
372;  his  reappearance  in  public  life, 
373 ;  new  efforts  for  a  united  Italy, 
374:  Garibaldi  and  revolutions  in 
Southern  Italy,  374-378;  invasion  of 
papal  territory,  378;  assembled  the 
first  Italian  parliament,  379;  his  re- 
lations with  Garibaldi,  379,  380;  his 
surrender    of    Nice    to    Napoleon    III, 


379,  380;  effort  to  secure  Rome  as 
capital,  381,  385;  his  capacity  for 
work,  383;  his  last  days,  384,  385; 
compared  with  Bismarck,  386,  523- 
525,  527,  530;  with  Lincoln,  387; 
peculiarities  of  his  statesmanship, 
387;  growth  of  feeling  for  him,  387; 
burial  at  Santena,  388;  his  bust  in 
the  Campo   Santo  at  Pisa,   388 

Charles  Albert,  King  of  Sardinia,  345, 
348,    350,    358,    359,    361 

Christian  religion,  Grotius'  book  on, 
103 

"  Christianity,  Services  Rendered  to  the 
World  by,"   by  Turgot,    172 

'  ■  Church  in  the  Middle  Ages,  History 
of  the  Struggle  between  Empire 
and,"    by   Thomasius,    155 

Church  vs.  the  State,  181,  182;  Sarpi's 
political  doctrine,   8,   26 

Circulation  of  the  blood,  Paolo  Sarpi 
anticipated  Harvey  in  discovery  of,  5 

City  systems,  old,   of  Europe,  271,  272 
See  also   Municipal  government. 

Civil,  political,  and  municipal  rights, 
275 

Civil  War  in  America,  attitude  of  Ger- 
many,   of   Bismarck,    447,    449 

Clugny,   Amelot  de,   229 

Coinage  of  Germany,  old  systems,  498; 
Bismarck  and  the  new  coinage,  498, 
499 

Colbert,  Comptroller-General  of  France, 
and  his  "mercantile  system,"  183- 
186,   216-219 

Colonial  systems,  Turgot  on,  his 
prophecy   regarding   America,    174 

"  Consolato  del  Mare,"  early  maritime 
laws,   86 

Constitutions  check,  not  promote,  De- 
mocracy,  10 

Contarini,   friend  of  Paolo   Sarpi,   5 

Crimean  War,  Italy's  part  in,  366; 
Prussia  neutral,  Austria  joined  other 
powers  against  Russia,  421,  422; 
Russia's  proposal  to  annul  treaty 
after   Franco-German    War,    461 

"Crimes  and  Punishments,"  by  Bec- 
caria,    101 

Criminals,  clerical,  punishment  of, 
Sarpi's  books   on,    28,   29 

"Customs  of  Amsterdam,"    86 

Customs   Union  of   Germany,   395,   448 

De  Giers,  Russian  Chancellor,  478 
"  De   Jure  Belli   ac   Pacis."     See   Gro- 
tius. 
Delft,  church  of,   107,   108 
Democracy,  office  of  the  Constitution  in 

a,  9 
Denmark,     loss     of     Schleswig-Holstein 

territory,    431-435 
Disraeli,    his   recognition   of  Bismarck's 

truthfulness,    519 
Dominion  over   the   Sea.     See   Maritime 

law. 
Dominis,      Antonio      de,      had      Sarpi's 

"History      of      Council      of      Trent" 

translated    in     England,     32;     put    to 

death    by    Inquisition,    26 
Don    Carlos,    Bismarck's    dealings   with, 

472 
Donato,   Leonardo,   Doge   of  Venice,    17, 

19 
Dort,  Synod  of,  1618-1619,  69 


542 


INDEX 


Ecclesiastical  benefices,  history  of,  by 
Sarpi,   28 

"Economists"  or  "Physiocrats,"  the, 
of  France,   184-187 

Education,  higher,  sectarian  control,  in- 
fluence of  Thomasius,  158;  Turgot's 
ideas,    182,    224 

Encyclopedie,  The,  Turgot's  contribu- 
tions, 179;  Quesnay's  contributions, 
184 

Episcopius  at  the   Synod  of  Dort,   69 

Eugenie,  Empress,   370,  439,  452 

Executioners'  tariffs  in  time  of  witch 
persecutions,    152,   153 

Eye,  contractility  of  iris,  discovery  by 
Paolo   Sarpi,   5 

"  Falk  Laws"   in  Germany,   488,   491 
Ferdinand  I,   King  of  the  Two   Sicilies, 

339 
Ferdinand  II,  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies, 

349,   376 
Ferrier,    Arnauld    du,    his    acquaintance 

with  Paolo  Sarpi,  6 
Feudalism,   evils  of,  Boncerf's  book  on, 

222 
Fichte's     "Addresses    to    the    German 

Nation,"    296 
Flade,   Dietrich,    141,    146 
Follen,   Carl,   399 
France 

Church  divorced  from  the  state,   182 

Economic  doctrines  and  the  "  Econo- 
mists,"   183-187 

Famine,    1739-1740,   212 

Farmers  General,  the,  and  the  tax 
system,    219-221 

Feudalism,  Boncerf's  book  on  evils 
of,  inspired  by  Turgot,  222 ;  Tur- 
got's  early  efforts   against,    197 

Grain,  free  trade  in,  and  the  disap- 
pearance  of   famines,    194 

Grain  monopoly  overthrown  by  Tur- 
got, 207-210 

Huguenots,  treatment  of,  by  Riche- 
lieu,  74-76 

Internal  "protective"  system,  Tur- 
got's efforts  to  destroy,  192-194, 
207-210 

Militia  system  improved  by  Turgot, 
195 

Nantes,  Revocation  of  Edict  of,  in- 
jury to  French  interests,   180 

Paper  money,  Law,  Terrasson,  and 
Turgot    on,    168-170 

Parliament  of  Paris,  recall  of;  oppo- 
sition to  Turgot,  178,  205,  207, 
209,   215,   218,   228 

Political  education,  Turgot's  plan  of, 
223-226 

Poor  districts,  condition  of  peasantry, 
189,  212 

Potato,   introduction  of,   195 

Prejudice  between  upper  and  lower 
classes,  215 

Property  qualification  for  suffrage, 
Turgot's    views    on,    232 

Revolution,   some  of  causes,   213,   231 

Roads,  construction  of  the  royal, 
Turgot's  improved  methods  at 
Limoges,  191;  his  effort  to  extend 
system  throughout  France,  214, 
215 

Rochelle,  La,  siege  by  Richelieu,  74- 
76 

States-General,    The,    215,    235 

Taxation    of    land,    Turgot's    reforms 


at  Limoges,  190;  his  efforts  at  re- 
form     while       Comptroller-General, 
211-214;       manner      of      collecting 
taxes,  213,  219-221 
Trade   and   industrial   conditions,   Col- 
bert's   system    and    decrees,     183- 
186,    216;    Turgot's  suppression   of 
the  trade  corporations,   216-219 
Treaty  of  Basle  in  1795,  246,  247 
War    with    Netherlands,    "  Mercantile 

System"   as  one  of  causes,  183 
See    also     Franco-German    War;     Na- 
poleon;   Turgot. 

Francis   II,   King   of   the   Two    Sicilies, 
376,    377 

Francis  IV,  Duke  of  Modena,  325,  340 

Francis  Xavier,  Saint,  ' '  noblest  of 
Jesuit   apostles,"    3 

Francke,  August  Hermann,  established 
Orphan  House  at  Halle,  Germany, 
118 

Franco-German  War,  1870-1871,  jeal- 
ousy of  France,  450;  the  French  Am- 
bassador Benedetti  and  his  demands 
on  Bismarck  for  concessions  of  Ger- 
man territory,  450,  451;  condition  of 
the  Bonaparte  dynasty,  451 ;  Na- 
poleon resisted  the  pressure  for  war, 
452 ;  mob  mania  for  war  in  France, 
452 ;  influence  of  Eugenie,  452 ;  the 
Hohenzollern  candidacy  for  the  Span- 
ish throne,  452 ;  French  Ambassador 
demands  of  King  William  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Prince,  453 ;  Bis- 
marck's efforts  to  seat  the  Prince  oa 
the  Spanish  throne,  454;  French  mob 
demanded  war,  455;  Benedetti 's  hu- 
miliation of  King  William  at  Ems, 
455,  456;  Bismarck  and  generals 
edit  King  William's  telegram  for  the 
press,  457,  458;  France  declares 
war,  458;  Bismarck's  effective  ma- 
neuvers to  put  France  in  the  wrong 
before  the  world,  459;  comparison  of 
German  and  French  armies,  459;  bat- 
tle of  Sedan,  Napoleon  captured,  460 ; 
Bismarck  prevents  meeting  between 
King  William  and  Napoleon,  460; 
establishment  of  the  third  French 
Republic,  460;  other  German  vic- 
tories, 460,  461;  Bismarck  at  Ver- 
sailles, his  efforts  to  establish  a  re- 
sponsible government  in  France,  461 ; 
proclamation  of  the  German  Empire 
and  of  William  I  as  the  German  Em- 
peror, 462,  463,  464,  468;  negotia- 
tions for  peace,  464-467;  French  ap- 
peals for  European  intervention  and 
Bismarck's  circulars  in  reply,  466; 
treaty  of  Frankfort,  467 

Frankfort,   treaty  of,   467 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  Turgot's  tribute 
to,  175;  his  attitude  toward  the  in- 
dependence   of    America,    174 

Frederick  the  Great,  his  genius,  241 

Frederick  III  becomes  Emperor,  his  con- 
fidence in  Bismarck,  504;  his  death, 
505 

Frederick  IV,  King  of  Denmark,  death 
of,   431 

Frederick  William  II,  his  likeness  to 
Louis  XV,  243,  244;  his  internal  ad- 
ministration, extravagance  and  dis- 
honesty of,  244;  his  external  policy, 
244;  Gouverneur  Morris's  prophecy 
concerning,   247 


INDEX 


543 


Trederick  William  III,  his  weakness,  his 

attempts  at  reform,  247 
Trederick  William  IV,   253;   the   United 

Prussian    Diet    at    Berlin,    395,    396; 

his  humiliation  by  mob,   396;    refuses 

title    of    German    Emperor   offered    by 

National   Parliament,    398;    his   death, 

425 
Tree-trade,   Bismarck's  war  on,   502 
Trench     Revolution,      effect      of,      upon 

Prussia,   245,  246;  upon  France,  248 

Galileo  ■ '  taught  the  world  what  dog- 
matic theology  is  worth  when  it  can 
be  tested  by  science,"  3,  22;  hos- 
tility of  Protestant  ecclesiastics,  118, 
119 

Garibaldi,  Joseph,  his  efforts  for  Italian 
liberty,  359,  374-378,  385;  his  rela- 
tions  with   Cavour,    379,    380 

Gerard,  Balthazar,  assassinator  of  Wil- 
liam  of    Orange,    56 

German  constitution,  Bismarck's  work 
on  the,   467-469 

German  historical  work  and  the  ' '  Mon- 
umenta    Germaniae,"    309. 

German  literary  journal,  first  in  ver- 
nacular, established  by  Thomasius, 
127 

German  literature,  Thomasius'  influence 
upon,    127,    137 

German  universities,  theological  fetters, 
118;  pedantry,  119;  influence  of 
Thomasius  upon  their  emancipation, 
158;  establishment  by  the  Hohenzol- 
lerns,  132,  133 

Germany,  growth  of  Catholicism,  115; 
struggle  between  Lutheranism  and 
Calvinism,  114-118;  general  condi- 
tions following  the  Congress  of 
Vienna,  391-393;  agitations  for  con- 
stitutional government,  393;  student 
organization,  the  Burschenschaft, 
393 ;  confederation  of  thirty-nine 
states  and  its  national  congress  at 
Frankfort-on-Main,  393;  effect  of 
French  revolution  of  1830  on  condi- 
tions in  Germany,  394;  establish- 
ment of  a  Customs  Union,  395; 
Frederick  William  IV  becomes  King 
of  Prussia,  395;  a  United  Prussian 
Diet  at  Berlin,  395,  410;  effect  of 
French  revolution  of  1848  on  condi- 
tions in  Germany,  396;  Metternich 
driven  from  power,  humiliation  of 
King  Frederick  William,  396;  Na- 
tional Parliament  assembled  at  Frank- 
fort, 1848,  397,  415;  Frederick  Wil- 
liam refused  title  of  ' '  Emperor  of 
Germany,"  398;  anarchic  conditions, 
the  Parliament  dissolved,  398;  rise 
■of  Bismarck,  399;  Erfurt  parliament 
of  1850,  416;  Diet  at  Frankfort,  Aus- 
trian supremacy  in,  418-420;  Crimean 
War,  Prussia  neutral,  421,  424:  reor- 
ganization of  the  army  under  William 
I,  427-429;  Schleswig-Holstein  claims, 
431 ;  conquest  of  territory  by  Prussia 
and  Austria,  432-434;  treaty  of  Vien- 
na, 433;  of  Gastein,  435;  Seven 
Weeks'  War  with  Austria:  alliance 
with  Italy,  436;  efforts  to  determine 
attitude  "of  Napoleon  III,  436-438; 
his  policy,  438,  439;  Bismarck  op- 
posed by  royal  family  and  Parliament, 
440;    attack  upon  his  life,   441;   war 


declared,  441 ;  victory  of  Prussia  at 
Sadowa,  442;  Bismarck's  policy  to- 
ward Austria  concerning  territory  and 
indemnity,  442,  444;  treaty  of  Prague, 
443 ;  establishment  of  the  North  Ger- 
man Confederation,  445-450 ;  France 
seeks  pretext  for  war  with  Germany, 
450,  451 ;  the  Hohenzollern  candidacy 
for  the  Spanish  throne  provokes  war, 
452-458;  France  declares  war,  458 
victory  of  Germans  at  Sedan,  460 . 
proclamation  of  the  German  Empire 
at  Versailles,  463,  464;  negotiations 
for  peace,  464-467;  treaty  of  Frank- 
fort, 467;  constitution  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  467,  468;  Congress  of 
Berlin  in  1878  for  settlement  of  the 
Eastern  Question,  474,  475;  ill  feel- 
ing between  Russia  and  Germany, 
475,  476;  alliance  of  Germany  and 
Austria,  476;  "Triple  alliance"  of 
Germany,  Austria,  and  Italy  in  1883, 
477;  Bismarck's  dealings  with  Great 
Britain  and  African  questions,  479- 
481;  colonial  aspirations,  480,  481; 
conflict  with  the  Roman  Church  lead- 
ing political  issue  for  six  years,  485- 
492;  establishment  of  a  supreme 
court  for  the  empire,  495;  Bismarck's 
effort  to  secure  financial  independence 
for  the  Empire,  497;  improvement  of 
railway  systems,  497;  new  coinage 
system,  498;  rise  of  Socialism,  499; 
Bismarck's  policy,  500;  Germany  and 
high  tariff,  501,  502;  compulsory 
state  insurance  for  the  working 
classes,  501 ;  death  of  Frederick  III, 
505;  Emperor  William  II,  505;  his 
activity,  506,  507;  his  break  with 
Bismarck,   508-512 

See     also     Bismarck;     Franco-German 
War;  Prussia;  Thomasius;  Stein. 
Gioberti,     Vincenzo,    his     "  Moral    and 

Civil  Primacy  of  the  Italians,"  347 
Gladstone,  his  study  of  tyrannical  meth- 
ods in  Southern  Italy,  375,  376; 
African  affairs  and  Bismarck,  479- 
482;  Bismarck's  criticism  of  his  for- 
eign policy,  482;  comparison  with 
Bismarck,  520,  523-525,  527,  530 
Gortsehakoff,  Russian  Chancellor,  his  ill 

feeling   toward   Bismarck,    475 
Gramont,    Duke   de,   French   Minister   of 

Foreign   Affairs,   453,    455 
Gregory     XIII,      celebrated     the      Mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomew's,   75 
Gregory  XVI,  his  hostility  to  memory  of 
Sarpi,  45;  narrow  and  intolerant,  325 
Groen    van    Prinsterer,    his    attack    on 

Grotius,    71 
Grotius,   Hugo,   1583-1645. 

Advocate  General  of  the  Treasury  for 
the  Provinces  of  Holland  and 
Zealand,  59 
Arminian  and  Calvinist  struggle  in 
Netherlands,  his  support  of  Edict 
of  Pacification,  66;  his  friendship 
with  Barneveld,  opposing  Prince 
Maurice,  67;  his  efforts  for  tolera- 
tion and  peace,  68;  unsuccessful 
resistance  to  Maurice,  69 ;  Synod 
of  Dort,  69;  imprisonment  for  life, 
70;  charge  of  disloyalty  to  Barne- 
veld, 71,  72 ;  escape  from  prison, 
72;  his  welcome  in  France,  72,  103 
Attorney   General  of   the   Province   of 


544 


INDEX 


Holland,  Councilor  and  Pensionary 
of  Rotterdam,  64 
Birth  at  Delft,  Holland,  55;  political 
conditions  in  Europe,  56;  his  an- 
cestry, 56;  his  precocity,  "a  sec- 
ond Erasmus,"  57;  at  University 
of  Leyden,  57;  influence  of  Scaliger, 
57;  his  scholarship  and  fame,  57, 
58;  his  study  of  law,  59 

Calumnies,  70,  71 

Death  at  Rostock,  Germany,  final 
burial  beneath  church  of  Delft,  107, 
108 

"  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis,"  published 
in  1625,  72,  122;  estimate  of  work, 
79,  122;  condemned  at  Rome,  73; 
foundation  of  modern  international 
law,  92;  faith  and  foresight  of 
Grotius,  79,  97;  sources  of  book's 
development,  88;  "Law  of  Na- 
ture "  and  "  Law  of  Nations,"  88; 
plan  of  work,  94;  criticisms  of 
work,  93-98;  right  of  waging  war, 
89;  wars  for  religion,  89;  extension 
of  war  as  to  methods  and  persons, 
90:  conqueror's  rights  over  the 
conquered,  91 ;  international  arbitra- 
tion of  disputes,  92,  93;  slavery, 
94;  duty  of  individual  to  state,  95; 
social  contract,  95,  96;  rights  of 
neutrals,  98;  influence  of  book  upon 
the  world,  73-78,  99-101;  relation 
of  to  Treaty  of  Westphalia,  77,  107; 
to  peace  conferences,  78;  his  in- 
debtedness to  his  predecessors,  86, 
100;  compared  with  "Crimes  and 
Punishments"  and  "Wealth  of 
Nations,"    101 

"De  Jure  Praedae."  ms.  of  1604 
found  at  The  Hague  in  1868,  59 

Emerson,  comparison  to,  93 

Encyclopaedia  of  Martianus  Capella, 
revision  of,  by  Grotius,   57 

Exile  from  Holland;  in  France,  72, 
103 ;  return  to  Holland,  again  an 
exile,  105;  in  Germany,  105;  in  serv- 
ice of  Sweden,  105;  received  in 
Holland,    106 

France,  his  welcome  in,  and  pension 
from  Louis  XIII,   72,   103 

Grand  Pensionary  of  Holland  and 
West  Friesland,   64 

Henry  IV  of  France,  Grotius  at  court 
of,  1598,  58;  King  gave  Grotius  his 
portrait,  58 

"History  of  the  Netherlands,"  writ- 
ten while  Swedish  Ambassador  to 
Paris,    106 

Index,  Roman,  his  works  on,  73,  101, 
104 

James  I  tries  to  crush  him,  62;  later 
flatters   him,    64 

Law,  his  study  of,  his  ideals,  59 

"  Mare  Liberum,"  published  in  1609, 
his  doctrine  of  dominion  over  the 
sea,  59 ;  the  argument,  61 ;  effect 
of  book  on  the  world  of  that  time, 
62,  64;  Selden's  reply  in  "Mare 
Clausum,"   62 

Public  Historiographer,  64 

Pufendorf  his  first  great  apostle,  73 

Recognition  of  his  service  to  mankind, 
the  Netherlands  in  1883,  anniver- 
sary of  his  birth,  108;  1886,  erec- 
tion of  bronze  statue  at  Delft,  108; 
1899,  American  delegation  to  Peace 


Conference  placed  wreath  on  tomh, 
109;    statue   for  Palace   of   Interna- 
tional Justice    suggested,    109 
Religious     toleration,     his     continuous 

work  for,   103 
Reserve  and  modesty,  evidence  of,  59 
Richelieu's  estimate  of,   76,   78 
Sarpi's    "Right    of    Sanctuary,'      his 

tribute  to,  28 
Statue  of,  at  Delft  church,  108;   sug- 
gestion for  Palace  of  International 
Justice,  109 
Sweden,    his    service    for,    105 ;    Am- 
bassador to  Paris,  105;  his  life  and 
work  there,    106 
Thomasius'    teaching  at  University  of 

Halle,    134 
"Truth  of  Christianity,"    103;   dedi- 
cation  to    Louis    XIII,    104;    bitter 
criticisms,    put    upon   Index,    104 
See  also   Netherlands. 
Gustavus       Adolphus,       influenced       by 
Grotius'    "  De   Jure   Belli   ac   Pacis," 
74;  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  87;  his 
request  concerning  Grotius,  105 

Hague  Conference.  See  International 
Peace    Conferences. 

Halle,  Germany,  Orphan  House  estab- 
lished by  Francke,   118 

Halle,  University  of,  Thomasius  as  pro- 
fessor, 132,  133,  157;  attacks  of  ene- 
mies, 133;  became  leading  center  of 
German  thought,  133 ;  Thomasius  its 
"cornerstone,"  134;  Grotius  and 
Pufendorf  basis  of  Thomasius'  teach- 
ing, 134;  his  love  for  truth  and  use 
of  right  reason.  134;  his  methods  as 
teacher,  135;  law,  sciences,  history, 
literature,  and  theology,  135,  137; 
training  school  for  state  officials  of 
Prussia,  136;  "first  really  modern 
university,"  136;  services  of  Thoma- 
sius to  House  of  Hohenzollern,  137; 
to   German  literature,    137 

Hanover,  Napoleon's  gift  of,  to  Prussia, 
249-251 

Hardenberg,  Karl  Augnst,  250,  263,  268, 
296 

Harnack,  Adolf,  called  to  the  Berlin 
Faculty,    507 

Haugwitz  and  Napoleon,  249,  250,  261 

Hegel,  influence  of,  on  conditions  in 
Germany,  394 

Heinzelmann,  John,  Lutheran  pastor  in 
Berlin,    117 

Henry  IV  of  France,  his  friendship  with 
Venice,  despite  the  Vatican,  12;  his 
interest  in  Hugo  Grotius,   58 

Heretics,  no  faith  to  be  kept  with,  doc- 
trine of  Roman   church,   82 

History,  teaching  of,  by  Thomasius.  at 
University  of  Halle,  135,  136;  Tur- 
got's  fundamental  idea  on  the  philoso- 
phy of,  174;  his  writings  on  universal 
history  ami   geography,   174,   179 

Hohenlohe,  Chlodwig  von,  485,  493 

Hohenthal,  Countess,  Bismarck's  frank 
conversation  with,   519 

Hohenzollerns,  the  establishment  of  uni- 
versities by,  132,  133;  services  ren- 
dered to  by  Thomasius,  137 

Holland.      See   Netherlands. 

Huguenots,     merciful    treatment    of,    by 
Cardinal   Richelieu,    74-76;    commands 
of  Pius  V,  75 
See  also  Nantes. 


INDEX 


5-15 


Humboldt,  William  von,  reorganized 
Prussia's  system  of  public  instruction, 
296 

Huss,  Jolin,  burning  of,  82 

Index,  Roman 

Grotius'    works   in,    73,   101,    104 
Neapolitan  edition,   329 
Sarpi's  books  in,  20 
Innocent  VIII  and  witch  persecution  iu 

Germany,    139 
Innocent  X   and   the   bull"Zelo   Domus 
Dei"    concerning  the  Treaty  of  West- 
phalia,   77,    78,   99,   107 
Inquisition,   The 

Cardinal    Santa    Severina    its    head,    7 
Netherlands'      inhabitants     condemned 

to  death  by,    1563,   56 
"Safe    Conduct,"    worthless    guaran- 
tees  of,    25,    26. 
Sarpi's   treatise  on  the  Inquisition  at 
Venice,   28 
"Safe   Conduct," 
Insurance,    compulsory   state,    for   work- 

ingmen,  in  Germany,  501 
Interdict,     various     efforts     of    Vatican 
to      impose      on      Venice      in      1006, 
causes,    13,   15;   action  of  Senate,   17, 
18;    Sarpi's    advice   to   Doge,    17,    18, 
19;    Sarpi's   protest   issued   by    Doge, 
19;   Vatican  paralyzed,   20;   efforts  at 
compromise,     20 ;     power     of     Papacy 
broken,      21,      modern      instance      at 
Adria,  Italy,  in  1909,  22 
Interest     on     loans,     Venetian     struggle 
against  the  Church,  11-13;  theological 
doctrine     concerning,     200;     Turgot's 
"Loans  at  Interest,"  200 
International  law 

Evolution  of,  79,  120-122;  idea  of 
imperial  power  giving  laws  to  na- 
tions, 81;  unfitness  of  German  Em- 
pire to  mediate  between  nations, 
81 ;  the  Papacy  as  a  mediator,  81 ; 
doctrines  which  undermined  faith  in 
the  Papacy,  82,  83;  Protestant 
practices,  intolerance,  and  cruelties, 
84;  beginnings  of  an  appeal  to  right 
reason,  86;  maritime  codes  devised, 
86 ;  return  to  cruelties  of  war, 
Machiavellian  doctrines  developed, 
86,  87 
Grotius'  "  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis," 
the  foundation  of  modern  interna- 
tional law,  92;  its  teachings,  88- 
99;  its  influence,  73-78,  99-101; 
predecessors  of  Grotius,  86,  100; 
right  of  waging  war,  89 ;  wars  for 
religion,  89 ;  extension  of  war  as  to 
methods  and  persons,  90 ;  conquer- 
ors' right  over  the  conquered,  91, 
92;  international  arbitration  of  dis- 
putes, 92,  93;  slavery,  94;  duty  of 
individual  to  state,  95 ;  social  con- 
tract, 95,  96;  rights  of  neutrals,  98 
Thomasius  and  his  teachings  at  Uni- 
versity of  Halle,  134,  136 
See  also  Maritime  law. 
International  Peace  Conferences 

Grotius    and    the    "germ    of    arbitra- 
tion,"   92,   93 
Grotius  and  the  rights  of  neutrals,  98 
Grotius'    tomb,    wreath   placed   on,    by 

American  delesation,   109 
Leo  XIII,  his  representatives  not  ad- 
mitted, in  1899,  102 

35 


Nicholas  II  and  the  influence  of  Jean 

de  Bloch's  book,  76 
Palace    of    International    Justice,    gift 
of,    109;    Grotius'   statue  in  Palace, 
suggested,   110 

Ipsen,  Johann  Paul,  147 

Ismail  Pasha,  influence  of  Bismarck  in 
the  downfall  of,  479 

Italy,  early  conditions  of  people,  320; 
Napoleon  Bonaparte's  treatment  of 
Italy,  321;  rise  of  Austria's  suprem- 
acy, 323;  territorial  divisions  and 
characteristics  of  people,  324-326; 
condition  of  education,  3'.' (-336;  po- 
litical cr.techisms,  331-337,  377; 
Austria's  suppression  or  all  liberal 
ideas,  337,  338;  constitution  granted 
at  Naples,  then  abolished,  339;  Pied- 
mont's revolution  and  efforts  for  a 
constitution,  340;  the  "Carbonari," 
341;  Austria's  persecutions,  341, 
342;  revolutions  of  1830,  344;  activity 
of  Mazzini,  345,  346,  378;  effect  of 
patriotic  literature,  346;  constitution- 
al movement,  weakness  of  Pius  IX, 
348,  349,  359,  360;  rise  of  Cavour, 
350-357;  constitution  for  Piedmont, 
358;  Austria  defeated  at  battle  of 
Goito,  359;  destructive  work  of  po- 
litical "reformers,"  359-361;  Aus- 
tria again  in  power,  361;  efforts  of 
Cavour  as  a  member  of  the  Cabinet, 
362-365;  Crimean  War,  Italy's  part 
in,  366,  367;  Cavour  at  Congress  of 
Paris,  367,  368 ;  agreement  with  Na- 
poleon III  against  Austria,  369,  370; 
combined  armies  win  war  against 
Austria,  371;  treachery  of  Na- 
poleon and  the  treaty  of  Villafranca, 
371;  Cavour  retires  from  ministry, 
372;  Napoleon  and  the  confederation 
idea,  373  _;  Cavour  again  a  leader, 
373;  Garibaldi  and  revolutions  in 
Southern  Italy,  374-378;  invasion  of 
papal  territory,  378;  first  Italian  par- 
liament, 379;  relations  between  Gari- 
baldi and  Cavour,  379-381;  effort  to 
secure  Rome  as  capital,  381,  385; 
Mortara  abduction  case,  381-383; 
Rome  and  Venice  free,  a  united  Italy, 
385;  alliance  with  Germany  and  Aus- 
tria against  Russia  and  France,  477 

James  I  of  England,   recognition   of,   by 

Venetian  Republic,  12 ;  his  interest  in 

Sarpi,    34 
Jena,  Napoleon's  defeat  of  the  Prussian 

army  at,   251 
Jefferson,    Thomas,    173,    233,    236;    on 

the   right   of  people  to    think   and   act 

upon    local    interests,    277;    Jefferson 

and  Sarpi  as  letter-writers,  33 
Jesuits 

Expelled   from   Germany,    488 

Expelled   from   Venice,    19 

Jesuit  and  papal  intrigue  exposed  in 
Sarpi's  "History  of  the  Contro- 
versy between  Pope  Paul  V  and 
Venice,"    27 

Saint  Francis  Xavier,  "  noblest  of 
Jesuit   apostles,"    3 

Sarpi,  Paolo,  most  resourceful  foe  of 
Jesuitism,    3 

Spiritual  army  of  Catholicism  in 
Germany,    115 


546 


INDEX 


"Witch  persecutions  in  Germany,  their 
part  in,   141,   142 

Joseph  II  of  Austria,   248 

"  Jugemens  d'Oleron,"  early  mari- 
time code,  86 

Jury  duty  as  a  political  education,  De 
Tocqueville   quoted,    187 

Kant,  influence  of,  244,  394 
Kepler,      hostility      of      Protestant     ec- 
clesiastics toward,   118 
Kotzebue,  assassination  of,  393 

Lasker,  Edward,  his  relations  with  Bis- 
marck, 483 ;  his  death  in  New  York, 
484 

Lassalle,  Ferdinand,  socialist,  Bis- 
marck's interest  in,   500,   501 

Law,  John,  on  paper  money,   168 

"  Laws  of  Wishy,"    86 

Laynez,  Diego,  speeches  of,  at  Council 
of  Trent,    8 

Leibnitz,    German   philosopher,    118 

Leipzig,  University  of,  lectures  by 
Thomasius,  in  German  language,  113, 
125,  126;  Thomasius  forbidden  to 
lecture,    130 

Leo  XIII,  his  representatives  not  ad- 
mitted to  Hague  Conference  of  1899, 
102;  greatest  Pontiff  since  Benedict 
XIV,  490;  his  understanding  with 
the   German   government,    490-492 

Lieber,  Francis,  399 

Limoges  porcelain  industry,   196 

Loevestein,  castle  where  Grotius  was 
imprisoned,    72 

Loos,  Cornelius,   141 

Loriquet,  Father,  his  ' '  History  of 
France  for  the  Use  of  Youth,"    336 

Louis  XIV,  theory  of,  regarding  his 
ownership  of  the  property  of  his  sub- 
jects,  169 

Louis  XV,  his  interest  in  the  grain 
monopoly,  207,  208;  his  death  and 
legacy  to  the  French  nation,  202; 
sermons  lauding  his  character,  228; 
his  likeness  to  Frederick  William  II, 
243 

Louis  XVI  becomes  king,  203;  his  cor- 
onation at  Rheims,  206;  his  support 
and    dismissal   of   Turgot,    229 

Louise,  Queen  of  Prussia,  Napoleon's 
cruelty  to,   253 

Luther,   his   intolerance,    114 

Lutheranism,  final  word  of  God  to  man, 
114;  petrified  into  rituals  and  creeds, 
the  "Formula  of  Concord,"  115; 
long  struggle  between  Lutheranism 
and  Calvinism,  114-118;  Masius' 
treatise  on,  129;  belief  in  witchcraft, 
143 

Machiavelli  "  taught  the  world  to  un- 
derstand political  despotism  and  to 
hate  it,"   3,   10 

Machiavellian  doctrines,  development 
of,    86,    87,    121 

Magdeburg,  siege  of,  116 

Magnetism,  discoveries  by  Paolo  Sarpi, 
5 

Malesherbes,  French  statesman,  205, 
229 

Manfredi's  "safe  conduct"  to  Rome, 
his   death,   25,   26 

Manzoni  and  the  "  Promessi  Sposi, " 
119,   340 


Maritime  law 

Early   codes:    "Jugemens  d'Oleron," 
"  Consolato   del   Mare,"    "Laws  of 
Wisby, "      "Customs     of     Amster- 
dam,"  86 
Early   conditions  and  claims,    60,    61 ; 
"Mare       Clausum, "       published       in 
1635,   by   John   Selden,    in    reply  to 
' |  Mare    Liberum, ' '    by    Hugo    Gro- 
tius,    62;     determined    theory    and 
practice   of   England   in   her   domin- 
ion of  the   seas,   63 
"  Mare  Liberum,"  published  in  1609, 
by    Hugo    Grotius,    his    doctrine    of 
dominion  over  the  sea,  59 ;  the  argu- 
ment,   61 ;    effect   of   book    in    world 
of  that  time,  62,  64;  Selden 's  reply 
in   "Mare  Clausum,"    62 
Masius'   work  on  Lutheranism,   129 
Maurepas,    Prime    Minister    of    France, 

203 
Maurice  of  Nassau,  Prince,  his  ambition 
to  become  monarch  of  the  Netherlands, 
66 ;  quarrel  with  republican  leaders, 
67;  takes  advantage  of  dissensions 
between  Arminians  and  Calvinists, 
67;  supports  the  Calvinists,  68;  the 
Synod  of  Dort,  69 ;  Arminians  driven 
from  country,  70 ;  Grotius  imprisoned, 
70,  72 ;  his  character  discussed  by 
Grotius,  106 
Mazzini,  uprisings  in  Italy  inspired  by, 

345,    346,    378 
Melanchthon,     his     last     struggle     with 

Lutheranism,   114 
Metternich,  297,  299,  304;  his  contempt 
for  Italy,   323,   338,   342;   driven  from 
power,   391,   396 
Metz,   surrender  of,   461 
Milan.     See  Italy. 

Moltke,    Count   von,   the    great    ' '  battle- 
thinker,"    457,   464,   494,   506 
Money.     See  Paper  money. 
Morosini,  Andrea,   friend  of  Sarpi,   5 
Morris,    Gouverneur,    his    prophecy    con- 
cerning  Frederick   William    II,    247 
Mortara,     abduction     case    in    Italy    in 

1858,   381 
Mortmain      and      religious      orders      in 
Venice,    laws    of    Senate,    interdict    of 
Paul  V,   13,   16,    18,   21 
Motley,    John    Lothrop,    his    friendship 

with  Bismarck,  404 
Municipal  government,  Stein's  reform  in 
Prussia,  270-278;  old  city  systems  of 
Europe,  271;  evolution  of  reform  at 
Konigsberg,  273;  history  of  the 
burgomastership  of  Berlin,  274;  civil 
right,  political  right,  municipal  right, 
275,  276;  Thomas  Jefferson  on  the 
right  of  people  to  act  upon  local  in- 
terests,  L77 

Nantes,  revocation  of  Edict  of,  injury  to 

French   interests,    180 
Naples.     See   Italy. 
Napoleon  I,   1769-1821 

Comparison    of,    with    Bismarck,    515- 

517,   521 
Cruelty  of,   253,   288,   289 
Italy,   his  dealings  with,   321,   322 
Jesuit     Father     Loriquet's     "History 

of  France,"  his  role  in,   336 
Prussia,     his     humiliation     of,     218- 
253;    his    cruelty    to   Queen    Louise, 
253;     his    entry'    into    Berlin,    251; 


INDEX 


547 


meets  the  Russian   emperor,   makes 
treaty  of  Tilsit,  252 

Retreat  from  Moscow,  299,  301 ;  al- 
liance of  German  states  against  him 
in  1S13,   303,   306 

Spanish  Peninsula,  his  defeat  in,  2S7; 
effect  of,   on   all  Europe,  288,   294 
Napoleon  III,  180S-1873. 

Bismarck's  characterization  of,  as  "  a 
great  unrecognized  incapacity," 
363;  his  first  meeting  with  Bis- 
marck, 423;  Bismarck's  ambassa- 
dorship at  Paris,  426,  438;  their 
estimate  of  each  other,  427,  451; 
his  attitude  toward  Bismarck  and 
Prussia's  war  with  Austria,  438- 
440 
1       Carbonari,  a  member  of  the,   341,  368 

German  territory,  his  desire  for  con- 
cessions of,  450,  452;  his  ambas- 
sador Benedetti  in  Prussia  press- 
ing claims  of  France,  450,  451; 
mob  mania  for  war,  452 ;  influence 
of  Empress  Eugenie,  452 ;  captured 
by   the   Germans   at   Sedan,    460 

Italy,  his  alliance  with,  against  Aus- 
tria, 368,  369;  Austria  beaten, 
371 ;  his  treachery  to  Italy  and  the 
treaty  with  Austria  at  Villafranca, 
371;  his  idea  of  a  confederacy  in 
Italy,   373 

See  also  Franco-German  War. 
Netherlands 

Edict    of    Pacification,    66 

Embassy  to  Henry  IV  of  France  in 
1598,    58 

History  of,  by  Grotius,   106 

Massacre   at   Antwerp,    56 

Religious  and  political  struggle  be- 
tween Arminians  and  Calvinists, 
65;  mob  murders,  66;  "Remon- 
strance" of  Arminians  in  1610, 
66;  Edict  of  Pacification,  66; 
Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau,  makes 
political  use  of  dissensions,  66,  67, 
68 ;  truce  of  twelve  years  with 
Spain,  67;  efforts  of  Grotius  for 
toleration  and  peace,  68,  69; 
Synod  of  Dort  in  1618,  69;  death 
of  Barneveld,  imprisonment  of 
Grotius,  70;  Arminians  driven  from 
country,    70 

Spanish  persecution,  inhabitants  con- 
demned  to   death,    1568,    56,    84 

Truce  of  Twelve  Years,  with  Spain, 
67 

War  with  France,  one  of  causes,  183 

See  also  Barneveld;  Grotius;  Maurice. 
Neutrals.     See  International  law. 
Nice,    surrender    of,    by    Cavour,    to    Na- 
poleon  III,    379 
Nicholas  I,  defeats  the  Hungarians,  399 
Nicholas  II,  influence  of  Jean  de  Bloch's 

book    on,    and    his    call   of    the    Peace 

Conference,    76 

Oaths,  permission  to  absolve  from,  doc- 
trine of  the  Catholic  Church,  83,  121; 
sanctioned  by  the  Reformed  Church, 
84 

Pallavicini's  History  of  the   Council   of 

Trent,   31 
Papacy 

Crimes  and  cruelties,  Sixtus  IV  to 
Leo  X,  10,  11 


"Heretics,    no    faith    is    to    be    kept 
with,"   effect  of  doctrine  upon  con- 
fidence  in   Papacy,    82 
Interdict  on  Venice,   1606,   13-21 
Law-giving     and     moderating     umpire 
between  states,  doctrines  which  un- 
dermined Papacy  as,   81,   82,   86 
Mortara  abduction  case,   381 
Temporal   power,    evolution   of,    7,    82 
Torture,      procedure     by,      sanctioned, 

151,    152 
Treaties  and  oaths,  its  power  to  break, 

83,    121 
Venetian       ambassadors       at       Roman 

Court,   their    "Relations,"    10,    17 
Witch    persecutions,    papal   utterances 

in   support   of,    138,    139,    142. 
See  also   names  of  Popes. 

Papal  states,  vicious  government  in, 
325,  344;  condition  of  education,  329; 
papal  armies  dispersed,  378;  Rome 
secured  as  capital,   381,   385 

Paper  money,  ideas  of  John  Law  and 
Terrasson,  168,  169;  Turgot's  argu- 
ment, 168,  170;  Daniel  Webster  on, 
170;  Stein's  attitude,  in  Germany, 
261 

Faraeus,  a  Calvinistic  divine,   116 

Paris,  Congress  of,  Cavour  at,  367;  con- 
dition of  Italy  and  conduct  of  Aus- 
tria brought  before  the  Conference, 
368 

Parliaments  of  various  nations,  com- 
parison of,  280 

Paul  V,  his  theory  of  government,  13, 
14;  his  anger  concerning  Venetian 
laws  on  mortmain  and  taxing  of 
church  property,  14,  15;  his  interdict 
on  Venice  in  1606,  15,  16,  18;  his 
demands  refused  by  Venice,  21;  he 
becomes  more  moderate,  22;  Sarpi's 
history  of  his  controversy  with 
Venice,   27 

Peasantry  of  France  and  Germany,  con- 
dition of,   266 

Pedantry  in  the  17th  century,  119 

Pellico,   Silvio,  his   "My  Prisons,"    342 

Pensions,  old  age,  in  Germany,   501 

Pertz's   "Life  of  Stein,"   291 

Philip  II,  responsibility  for  murder  of 
William  of  Orange,  21,  56;  Nether- 
lands' inhabitants  condemned  to 
death  by,   56 

Physiocrats  of  France,   184-187 

Piedmont.     See  Italy. 

Pius  V,  commissioned  assassin  to  mur- 
der Queen  Elizabeth,  21;  commanded 
massacre   and   forbade   mercy,    75 

Pius  VII,    325,   328 

Pius  VIII,   325 

Pius  IX,  348,  349,  358,  360;  his  con- 
flict with  Bismarck,  485-492;  his 
death,    490 

Poland,  partition  of,  245,  246,  252;  re- 
bellion in  1863  against  Russia,  430; 
Prussia's  attitude,  430 

Portugal,  maritime  rivalry  with  Spain, 
60 

Potato  introduced  into  France,  195 

Prague,  treaty  of,  443 

Prussia 

Administrative  reform  by   Stein,   285- 
290;    creation   of   Council   of    State, 
286 
Educational    movement,     Stein's    rela- 
tion   to,    278;    plans    for   university 


548 


INDEX 


at  Berlin,  279,  296;  Von  Hum- 
boldt's reorganization  of  system 
of  public  instruction,  296 
History,  genius  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  241 ;  Frederick  William  II, 
243 ;  French  influence,  and  decay 
in  Prussia,  243-245;  partition  of 
Poland,  245,  246,  252;  war  with 
France,  treaty  of  Basle  in  1795, 
246,  247;  Frederick  William  III, 
247;  beginning  of  struggle  against 
Napoleon,  249,  260;  treaty  of 
Schonbrunn,  249 ;  move  with  Rus- 
sia against  France,  defeat  at  Jena, 
251,  262;  treaty  of  Tilsit  in  1807, 
252;  humiliation  of  Prussia,  252, 
268;  serfdom  extinguished  by 
edict  of  1807,  265-269 
Military  system,  Stein's  reorganiza- 
tion of,  280-285;  old  system  one 
of  injustice,  281;  awakening  after 
defeat  at  Jena,  282;  work  of  Gen- 
eral Scharnhorst,  282-284;  Na- 
poleon's tyranny,  283,  284 
Municipal  reform  by  Stein,  270-278; 
old  city  system,  271;  evolution  of 
new  system  at  Konigsberg,  273 ; 
history  of  the  burgomastership  of 
Berlin,  274;  civil  right,  political 
right,  and  municipal  right,  275, 
276;  service  of  Hardenberg,  278 
Parliament  at  Berlin,  a  "  United 
Prussian  Diet,"  action  of  Fred- 
erick William  IV,  395 
Parliament  of,  its  dignity,  280 
State    officials     at     Halle     University, 

training  of,    136 
See    also    Franco-German    War;    Ger- 
many;   Seven    Weeks'    War. 
Pufendorf,  first  great  apostle  of  Grotius, 
73,    123;    his    "  De    Jure    Naturae    et 
Gentium,''     123;     his    influence    upon 
the    teaching    of    Thomasius,    134 
"Pulpit  Laws"   in  Germany,   487 
Punishment,   aim  of,   Sarpi's  opinion,   5; 
of   clerical    criminals,    books   by   Sarpi 
on,     in     1613,     28,     29;     influence     of 
Thomasius   on   reformation  in   punish- 
ments   for    crime,    157 

Quesnay  and  political  economy  in 
France,   184,   185 

Railways,  state  vs.  individual  ownership, 
conditions  in  Germany,  497 

Reiche,  Johann,   147 

Ribetti,  Archdeacon,  victim  of  the  In- 
quisition,  26 

Richelieu,  Cardinal,  influenced  by  Gro- 
tius' "  De  Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis, "  his 
mercy  to  La  Rochelle,  74-76;  his 
monument  in  the  Sorbonne,  76;  his 
estimate  of  Grotius,   76 

Rochelle,  La,  siege  by  Richelieu  and 
his   merciful   treatment,    74-76 

Rome,  efforts  to  secure,  as  capital,  381, 
385 

Rossi,  Pellegrino,  Italian  statesman,  his 
assassination,    360 

Rostock,  Germany,  first  burial  place  of 
Grotius,    107 

Rousseau,  his  and  Grotius'  theories  on 
the  "social  contract,"  95-98;  Tur- 
got's  plea  against  Rousseau  regard- 
ing the   destiny   of   humanity,    175 


Russell,  Lord  Odo,  on  Bismarck,  480 
Russia,  triumph  of  Napoleon,  treaty  of 
Tilsit  in  1807,  252;  Alexander  I  seeks 
aid  of  Stein  against  Napoleon,  297- 
304;  Stein's  influence  over  Alex- 
ander, 298,  299,  301,  302;  Na- 
poleon's retreat  from  Moscow,  299,  301 ; 
coalition  of  Russia  and  German  states 
against  Napoleon  in  1813,  303,  306; 
battle  of  Leipzig,  304;  Bismarck  as 
Prussian  Ambassador  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, 424;  Polish  rebellion  of  1863, 
430;  ill  feeling  between  Bismarck  and 
Gortschakoff,  475;  Bismarck's  policy, 
477 
Russo-Turkish  War,  1877-1878,  and  the 
Congress  of     Berlin,  474,  475 

Sadowa,   battle   of,   442 

Saint- Sulpice,   seminary  of,   166 

Salonica,   murder   of   German   Consul   at, 

Bismarck's   action,    473 
Santa  Fosca,   Sarpi's  convent,   5,   6 
Santa  Rosa,   an  Italian  statesman,   362 
Santa    Severina,    his    acquaintance    with 

Sarpi,   7 
Sarpi,    Paolo,    1552-1623 

"Advice"  to  Venetian  government, 
Sarpi's  authorship  of  it  denied,  49- 
51 

Assassination  attempted  by  Vatican 
agents,   24 

Attacks  upon  his  memory,  37-52; 
1719,  a  reprint  of  Sarpi's  works 
suppressed  by  Vatican's  agent  Ber- 
tolli,  38;  1722,  Sarpi's  body  found 
in  Church  of  Servites,  38,  39;  at- 
tempt to  destroy  identity,  40,  41 ; 
1771,  Vaerini  published  pretended 
biography,  he  imprisoned  and  book 
suppressed,  42;  1803,  "Secret 
History  of  Life  of  Fra  Paolo 
Sarpi, ' '  published  with  approval  of 
Austrian  government;  fraud  dis- 
covered by  director  of  Venetian 
archives,  43 ;  charge  that  Sarpi  was 
a  Protestant,  a  hypocrite,  6,  46,  49 ; 
charge  that  he  wrote  "  Advice  "  to 
Venetian  government  denied,  49- 
51 

Attacks  upon  his  reputation,  efforts 
to  discredit  him  among  scholars,  27 

Birth  and  early  years  at  Venice,  3,  4 

Body  found  at  Church  of  Servites  in 
1722,  38;  records  in  Library  of 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  38,  39; 
documents  in  coffin,  39-41;  at- 
tempts of  Vatican  to  destroy 
identity  of  corpse,  40,  41 ;  reburial 
of  remains,  44;  at  San  Michele,  45; 
hostility  of  Gregory  XVI,  45;  rest 
at   last,   46 

Called  the    "terrible  frate,"   20,   35 

Circulation  of  the  blood,  his  discovery 
of,   5 

Death,   in  1623,   36 

Doorway  through  garden  wall  of 
monastery,   25 

Education  given  by  the  Jesuits,  Sarpi 
on,  29 

Excommunication,    20,    36 

Fraudulent  biographies  of  him  ex- 
posed,   42,    43 

Friendbhips  with  Protestants  and 
other  eminent  men,  5,  6,  30,  34, 
51,   52 


INDEX 


549 


Gratitude  of  the  Venetian  Republic  to 

him,    37 
Historian,   compared  to  Tacitus,   32 
"History     of     Controversy     between 

Pope   Paul  V   and   Venice,"    27 
"History  of  Council  of  Trent,"   330; 
efforts    to    discredit    his    work,    31 ; 
style,   31;   English  translation  most 
noteworthy,     32 ;     original    copy    in 
archives  at  Venice,   33 
"History      of      Ecclesiastical      Bene- 
fices,"   28 
"  I    utter    falsehood    never,    but    the 

truth  not  to  every  one, "   34 
Index,    Roman,   his  books   in,    20;   his 

books  burned   at  Rome,   20 
Interdict  on  Venice,    1606,   his  advice 
to  Doge,   17;   his  protest  issued  by 
the     Doge,     19;     his     part     in     the 
"war  of  pamphlets,"    19;   his  vic- 
tory,    20;      called     the      "terrible 
frate,"   20;   excommunication,   20 
Letter-writer,   a   vigorous   and  influen- 
tial,     compared     to      Voltaire     and 
Jefferson,  33;  collections  of  letters, 
34 
Melanchthon,  comparison  to,  35 
Monument      to,      Venetian      Republic 
voted    for,    in    1623,    37;    Vatican's 
long     and     bitter     opposition,     37; 
bust    in    Venice    at    Ducal    Palace, 
on     Pincian     Hill     at     Rome,     46; 
statue    erected    in    Venice    in    1892, 
52 
Official     counselor     of     Venetian     Re- 
public  in   ecclesiastical   matters,   21 
Papal       encroachments       in       Europe, 

treaties,  on,  27 
Papers     destroyed     in     convent     fire, 

1769,    5 
Personal  characteristics,   4,   6,  24,   25, 

35,  51 
Political  doctrine :   state  rightfully  in- 
dependent of  church,   8,  26 
Portrait,     correspondence     concerning, 
between     Sir     Henry     Wotton     and 
King  James,  35;   in  Ducal  Library, 
44 
Punishment,   aim  of,   should  be   refor- 
mation,     not      vengeance,      5 ;      his 
books   on,    28,   29 
"Right   of    Sanctuary."    28 
Rome,   efforts  to   lure  him  to,  25,   35 
Scientific    studies    and    discoveries    in 

early  life,   4,    5 
Servite  Order,   a  member  of,   4 
"Taught   the   world   after  what   man- 
ner    the     Holy     Spirit     guides     the 
Councils   of   the    Church,"    3,    32 
"Theologian    of   Venice,"    21 
Valves  of  the  veins,  his  discovery  of,  5 
Venetian     Republic's     sympathy     and 

gratitude,    21,    25,    37 
See  also   Venice. 
Scaliger,    Joseph    Justus,    his   friendship 

with   Grotius,   57 
Scharnhorst,    General,  his  work  in  reor- 
ganizing the  military  system  of  Prus- 
sia,   282-284 
Schleiermacher,  his  confirmation  of  Bis- 
marck   in    Trinitv    Church    at    Berlin, 
403 
Scbleswig-Holstein,  various  claims,  431; 
alliance      of      Prussia      and      Austria 
against,   432 :    conquest  of,   and  treaty 
of  Vienna   in   1864,    433;    the   Augus- 


tenburg    Prince.     432-434;     disagree- 
ment   of    Austria    and    Prussia    over 
territory,     433,     434;     the     treaty    of 
Gastein,  435 
See  also  Seven  Weeks'   War. 

Schurz,  Carl,  his  coming  to  America, 
399 

Scott,  Walter,  and  the  "Fortunes  of 
Nigel,"    119 

Sect  spirit,  Turgot  on  the,  187 

Sedan,  battle  of,  460 

Selden,  John,  published  in  1635  "  Mare 
Clausum,"  a  reply  to  "Mare 
Liberum  ' '   by  Grotius,   62 

Serf  system  in  Prussia  abolished  by 
edict  of   1807,   265-269 

Seven  Weeks'  War  between  Prussia  and 
Austria,  1866,  Prussia's  alliance  with 
Italy,  436;  Russia's  neutrality,  436; 
Napoleonism  in  Europe,  his  real  posi- 
tion, 437;  Bismarck's  study  of  Na- 
poleon, 437,  438;  the  meeting  at 
Biarritz,a  438;  Napoleon's  plotting 
with  Bismarck  and  with  Austria, 
433,  439;  influence  of  Empress  Eu- 
genie, 439;  Napoleon's  policy,  439; 
Bismarck  opposed  by  royal  family 
and  by  Prussian  parliament,  440 ; 
war  declared,  441  ;  victory  of  Prussia 
at  battle  of  Sadowa,  442;  Bis- 
marck's policy  toward  Austria,  442- 
444;   treaty  of  Prague,   443 

Sicily.     See  Italy. 

Sixtus  IV,  assassination  of  Julian  de' 
Medici  in  Cathedral  of  Florence,  10, 
11 

Sixtus  V,  strongest  of  modern  popes,  12 

Slavery,   Grotius'   discussions  of,   94,   95 

Smith,  Adam,  his  "  Wealth  of  Nations," 
101;  his  relation  to  Turgot,  198,  199; 
study  of  his  work  by  Stein,  255,  269 

Social  contract  theories  of  Grotius  and 
Rousseau,  95,  98 

Socialism  in  Germany,  Bismarck's  deal- 
ings  with,    499,    507 

Sorbonne,  The,  character  of,  171;  Tur- 
got at,  171;  his  discourses  at,  172, 
173 

Spain 

Don  Carlos,  Bismarck's  dealings  with, 

472 
Hohenzollern    prince,    effort    to    place 
on     the    throne    one    of    causes    of 
Franco-German  War,   452-458 
Maritime   rivalry   with   Portugal,   60 
Philip    III,     submission    of,    to    Pope 

Paul   V,    15 
Vatican's    authority    successfully    re- 
sisted,   21 

Spee,  Friedrich,  142 ;  his  ' '  Cautio 
Crimhifilis,"    142 

Spener,  his  efforts  for  religious  peace  in 
Germany,  118,  129,  156 

Stein,  Henry  Frederick  Charles,  Baron 
vom,   1757-1831 

Administration  of  the  Department  of 
Mines  of  Westphalia,  256,  258, 
259;  his  experience  as  ambassador, 
257:  his  aversion  to  that  kind  of 
service,  258;  influence  of  Turgot, 
258;  made  minister  of  state  for 
Prussia,  260;  his  stand  on  paper 
money.  261 :  his  refusal  to  take 
the  Department  of  Foreizn  Affairs, 
262:  resignation  and  retirement  to 
Nassau,  263 ;  his  reinstatement,  be- 


550 


INDEX 


coming  also  Minister-President, 
263 ;   his  greatness,   264 

Administrative  system  of  Prussia,  his 
reform  of,    285-290 

"  Became  less  and  less  a  Prussian 
and  more  and  more  a  German," 
297 

Birth  and  family,  254;  education, 
255;  influence  of  Adam  Smith's 
"The  Wealth  of  Nations,"  255, 
269 ;  traveled  to  study  men  and 
realities,  256;  entered  service  of 
Frederick  the  Great,  his  desire  for 
German  unity,    256 

Bismarck,   comparison  to,   313-315 

Confidence  in  the  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple, 294;  influence  of  his  pa- 
triotism,  295 

Death  of,  310;  epitaph  over  his 
grave,    311 

Educational  movement  in  Prussia,  his 
relation  to,  278,  279 

German  history,  he  formed  society 
for  the  study  of,  309;  its  publica- 
tions, especially  the  "  Monumenta 
Germaniae  Historica,"  309 

German  states,  alliance  of,  against 
Napoleon  in  1813,  303;  Stein's 
counsels  set  aside,  lead  given  to 
Metternich,  304;  his  adminis- 
trative work  in  reorganizing  terri- 
tory taken  from  the  French,  304; 
nicknamed  ' '  the  German  Em- 
peror,"  304;  his  boldness  of  speech 
and  action,  305;  tributes  to  Stein, 
306,  308,  311,  312;  Vienna  Con- 
gress, and  Stein's  efforts  for  Ger- 
man unity,  306;  his  efforts  for 
restoration  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  307; 
his    retirement    from   politics,    307 

Home  of,  at  Nassau,   308 

Military  system  of  Prussia,  his  reor- 
ganization of,  280-285;  the  aid  of 
General    Scharnhorst,    282-284 

Municipal  reform,  his  work  for,  270; 
old  city  systems  in  Germany,  271, 
272 ;  evolution  of  statutes  for  mu- 
nicipal reform,  273-278;  the  burgo- 
mastership  of  a  city,  history  of 
Berlin's,  274;  civil  right,  political 
right  and  municipal  right,  275, 
276;    effects    of    Stein's    plan,    277 

Napoleonic  policy,  his  understanding 
of,   291,   294,   300 

Napoleon's    edict    against    him,    288, 

290,  293;  effect  on  German  people, 

291,  292 

Paper  money,  his  attitude  toward,  261 ; 

"Political  Testament,"  urges  a 
legislative  system  with  a  constitu- 
tion for  Prussia,  294 

Russia,  his  aid  sought  by  Alexander 
in  struggle  against  Napoleon,  297; 
his  influence  over  Alexander,  298- 
302;  his  fearlessness  in  Russia, 
299;  incident  of  the  Empress  Dow- 
ager, 299;  Napoleon's  retreat  from 
Moscow,  299,  301;  alliance  of 
Russia  and  German  states  against 
Napoleon,  303,  300;  battle  of  Leip- 
zig,   304 

Serfdom  abolished  by  edict  of  1807, 
265-269 

Tributes  to,  306,  308,  311,  313; 
monuments  to,  312 


Stevln,  Simon,  on  Navigation,  translated 

by  Grotius,  57 
Strasburg,  University  of,  reestablishment 

by  NVilliam  I,   133 
Stuartism    in    England    overthrown,    its 

significance,    113 
Stuttgart  Consistory,  warning  to  Kepler, 

118 
Sweden,    Grotius   as   ambassador  of,   at 

Paris,    105,    106 

Taxation  of  land.     See  France. 
Temporal  power  of  the  Roman  Catholic 

Church,   evolution  of,    7 
Terrasson,  on  paper  money,  168 
Terray,  Abbe,  184,  204 
Thiers,     French     statesman,     451,     458, 

461,   465,   466 
Thirty  Years'  War,  cruelties  of,  87,  99; 

effects  of,   116,    120 
Thomasius,   Christian,   1655-1728 
"Atheist"    and    "Pietist,"    129 
Birth  and  education,  120;  law  his  pro- 
fession, 120 
Death  in  1728,   159 
"Doctrine  of  Common  Sense,"  137 
"Doctrine  of  Morals,"    137 
Education,     higher,     his    influence     in 
favor  of  freedom  from  sectarian  in- 
terference  or   control,    128,    158 
Grotius    and    Pufendorf,    his    struggle 
against     and     final     conversion     to 
them,   124,  125 
Halle,  University  of,  beginning  of  his 
work  for,   132 ;   a  leading  center  of 
German  thought,    133;   basis  of  his 
teaching,      ideas     of     Grotius     and 
Pufendorf,    134;   his  love   for  truth 
and  use  of  right  reason  in   seeking 
it,  134;  methods,  as  a  teacher,  135; 
teaching    of    law,    sciences,    history, 
literature,   and   theology,    135,    137; 
Director     of     University     and     first 
Professor  of  Jurisprudence,   157 
"History  of  the  Struggle  between  the 
Empire     and     the     Church     in     the 
Middle  Ages,"    155 
Intolerance,   his  fight  against,   155 
Leipzig,  University  of,  his  lectures  in 
German     language     at,     113,     125; 
errors    in    taste    and    method,    125, 
126;  driven  from  Leipzig,  130,  132 
Literary  journal,   first  in  German,   es- 
tablished by  Thomasius,   127 
Masius'     work     on     Lutheranism     at- 
tacked,  129 
"Natural    and    International    Law," 

137 
Portrait   of,    160 
"  Programmata, "    154 
"Thoughts  and  Reminiscences,"   157 
Torture,  undermined  by  his  exposures 

and  researches,    149,    153,    154 
What   he    accomplished    for    Germany, 

113 
Witchcraft,    his    efforts   against  perse- 
cution for,    137,   144-147. 
Women,    rights   of,   his   views  on,   157 
Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  on  political  edu- 
cation,  187 
Toleration    true    statesmanship,    Turgot 

proves,   180 
Torture,    procedure    by.     its    connection 
with  witchcraft,   149;  history  and  de- 
velopment of,    149-153;    church's   uso 


INDEX 


551 


of,     150,     152;     executioners'     tariffs, 

152,        153;       Thomasius'        influence 

against,    153,    154;    end  of,   155 

See  also  Witchcraft. 
Treaties,   power   to  break   and  to   annul 

oaths,     doctrine     of     Roman     Church, 

83,     121;     sanctioned     by     Reformed 

Church,    84 
Trent,  Council  of,  1545  to  1563. 

History  of,  by  Sarpi,  3,  30;  efforts  to 
discredit  his  work,  31;  style,  31; 
English  translation  most  note- 
worthy, 32 ;  original  copy  in  ar- 
chives at  Venice,   33 

History  of,  by  the  Jesuit  Pallavicini, 
to  counterbalance  Sarpi's  book,  31 

Laynez,   speeches  of,   8 

Members   of,    6;    numbers  of  bishops, 
32 
Triple  alliance  of  Germany,  Austria  and 

Italy,   476,   477 
"  Truce  of  God,"   82. 
Tunis,    annexed  by   France,    ill  will   of 

Italy,  477 
Turgot,    Anne    Robert    Jacques,    1727- 
1781 

Birth  and  ancestry,  166;  personal 
characteristics,  166;  his  training  at 
Saint-Sulpice,  166;  special  thought 
and  study  given  to  religion  and 
politics,  167;  study  at  the  Sor- 
bonne,  171-176;  his  decision  to 
take  \ip  law  and  civil  service,  176; 
his  deep  sense  of  responsibility, 
178;  his  real  greatness,  165,  236- 
238 

Charges  made  against  him,  230-236 

Colonial  systems,  his  prophecy  re- 
garding  America,    174 

Comparison  with  Richelieu,  Sully,  and 
Colbert,   231,   234 

Comptroller-Ger»eral,  his  financial  pol- 
icy, 204;  his  attitude  toward  the 
recall  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris, 
206;  toward  the  coronation  at 
Rheims,  206;  toward  the  grain 
monopoly,  207-210;  his  efforts  to 
reform  taxation  system,  211-221; 
"the  six  great  edicts,"  214;  re- 
fusal of  gift  of  Farmers  General, 
220;  his  policy  regarding  lotteries, 
221;  his  plan  of  political  education, 
223-226;  his  enemies,  226-229; 
his  dismissal  and  death,  229,  236; 
charges  made  against  him,  230-236 

Councilor  in  the  Parliament  of  Paris, 
178;  his  study  of  public  adminis- 
tration,   179 

Death,   229 

Economists,  The,  his  sympathy  with, 
186 

Education,   his  ideas   on,    182 

"  Encyclopedic,"  his  contributions  to 

the,  179 
Franklin,    Turgot's    tribute    to,    175 

Gournay,   his  friendship  with,   186 

Greatness   of,    165,   236-238 

History,  philosophy  of,  his  funda- 
mental idea  on,  174;  his  writings 
on  universal  history  and  geography, 
174,    179 

Intendant  of  Limoges,  188,  189;  his 
kindly  sympathy,  190;  his  efforts 
to  mitigate  the  land  tax,  190;  his 
improved  methods  of  building 
roads,  191;  securing  of  free  trade 
in    grain,     193;     his     "Letters    on 


Free  Trade  in  Grain,"  194;  meas- 
ures taken  to  prevent  famines,  194; 
improvements  in  agriculture  and 
introduction  of  the  potato,  195;  his 
improvement  of  the  militia  system, 
195;  his  efforts  to  mitigate  feudal 
evils,  197;  his  writings  at  this 
time,  197-201;  results  of  his  ad- 
ministration,   201,    204 

Iron  industry,  his  letter  to  Terray  on 
protection  to,   201 

Malesherbes  on  Turgot's  devotion  to 
the  public  good,   178 

Paper  money,  his  discussion  of  the 
ideas  of  John  Law  and  Terrasson, 
168;   his  argument,   170 

Political  education  for  France,  his 
plans   for,    223-226 

Reform  measures  for  France,  various, 
223 

Roads  of  France,  his  efforts  to  im- 
prove construction  of,  191,  214, 
215 

Rousseau  and  Turgot  on  the  destiny 
of  humanity,   175 

Sect  spirit,  his  discussion  of  the,  187 

Sorbonne,  his  study  at,  171;  elected 
Prior,  172;  his  discourses  at,  172, 
173,  175;  comparison  to  Bossuet, 
174;  his  range  of  studies,  175;  left 
the  Sorbonne  to  devote  himself  to 
law  and  civil  service,  176 

Statue   of,   237 

Taxation  of  land,  his  reforms  at 
Limoges,  190;  his  efforts  to  adjust 
the  tax  throughout  France,  211- 
214;  farming  taxes  and  the  Farm- 
ers   General,    219-221 

Toleration,  his  ideas  and  his  writings 
on,    179-182 

Trade  and  industrial  conditions  of 
France,   his  reforms,   216-219 

Writings:      _    "Conciliator,"  180; 

"Formation  and  Distribution  of 
Wealth,"  197-199;  "Letters  on 
Toleration,"  180;  "Loans  on  In- 
terest," 200;  "On  the  Existence 
of  God,"  168;  "Memorial  on  Mu- 
nicipalities," 223;  "Services  Ren- 
dered to  the  World  by  Christian- 
ity," 172;  "  Successive  Advances 
of  the  Human  Mind,"  173;  "Uni- 
versal History  and  Geography,'' 
174 

Urban  VII,  his  acquaintance  with  Sarni, 

7 
Urban      VIII,      his      condemnation      of 

Galileo's  doctrine,  22 
Uytenbogaert,      a      theologian     at     The 

Hague,  66 

Vaerini  and  his  pretended  biography  of 

Paolo  Sarpi,  42 
Valves  of  the  veins  discovered  by  Paolo 

Sarpi,  5 
Venice 

Austrian    rule    and    Sarpi's    memory, 

42,   44 
Civil    administration,    ecclesiastics    ex- 
cluded from,   11 
Commerce,  contrary  to  Church  author- 
ity, 11,   13 
Doge,  his  limited  power,  10 
Ecclesiastics     imprisoned,     13;     given 
up  to  French  Ambassador,  21 


552 


INDEX 


Education,  public,  hostility  to  ec- 
clesiasticism,   11 

"History  of  Controversy  between 
Pope  Paul  V  and  Venice,"  by  Sar- 
pi,  27 

Inquisition,  Sarpi's  history  of  the, 
1611,   28 

Interdict  on  Venice,  1606,  by  Paul  V, 
causes,  13,  15;  what  it  meant  to 
Venetian  people,  16;  Senate  de- 
clined to  receive  any  dispatch  from 
Pope,  17;  election  of  new  Doge, 
17;  Sarpi's  advice  to  Doge,  17,  18, 
19;  interdict  launched,  18;  _  re- 
sistance by  Senate,  18;  opposition 
of  clergy,  19 ;  religious  orders  ex- 
pelled, 19;  war  of  pamphlets,  19; 
Sarpi's  protest  issued  by  Doge,  19; 
Vatican  paralyzed,  20;  efforts  at 
compromise,  20;  power  of  Papacy 
broken,  21 

Interest  on  loans,  struggle  against  the 
Church,  11,  12,  13 

Jesuits,  Theatins,  and  Capuchins  ex- 
pelled, 19 

Mortmain  and  religious  orders,  laws 
of  Senate  concerning,  and  interdict 
by  Paul  V,   13,   16,   18,   21 

Papal  encroachments,  opposition  to, 
11 

Religious  spirit  and  environment,  8,  9 

Religious  toleration  in  spite  of  Papal 
mandates,   12 

Revolution  in,  358;  Austria  driven 
out,  359;  taken  again  by  Austria, 
362;   united   Italy,    385 

Sarpi,  gratitude  of  Republic  to,  21 
25,   37 

Senate  and  Council  of  Ten,  of  unlim 
ited  authority,  10 

Statesmen  of  Venice,  foremost  in  Eu 
rope;  ambassadors  at  Roman  Court 
their    "Relations,"    10,    17 

University  of  Padua,  scope  and  free 
dom,  12 

See  also  Sarpi,  Paolo. 
Venetian    art    as    affected   by   religious 

spirit,   8 
Versailles,   proclamation  of  the  German 

Empire   at,   462-464 
Victor   Emmanuel   I,    King   of    Sardinia, 

his  abdication,   340 
Victor  Emmanuel  II,   King  of  Sardinia 

362,    367;   war  against   Austria,    379 

his    bravery,    371;    his    wisdom,    372 

with  troops  in  southern  Italy,   378  _ 
Villafranca,    treaty  of,    between   Austria 

and  Napoleon   III,   371,   425 
Voltaire,   his  rule  of  European  opinion, 

167;    Voltaire    and    Sarpi    as    letter- 
writers,   33 


Waldersee,  Count,  506 

War.     See    Grotius;    International    law. 

Washington,  George,  his  attitude  toward 
the   independence  of  America,    174 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  Father  Loriquet's 
account  of,  336 

"Wealth  of  Nations,"  by  Adam  Smith, 
101,    197 

Westphalia,  Department  of  Mines,  Stein 
as  head  of,   256,   258,  259 

Westphalia,   Treaty  of,   relation  of  Gro- 
tius'   "  De   Jure   Belli   ac   Pacis"    to, 
77,    78,    99,    107;    Pope    Innocent    X 
and  the  bull  "  Zelo  Domus  Dei,"   77, 
78,   121 

Wier,  John,  141 

William  I,  his  likeness  to  Queen  Louise, 
253 ;  crowned  King  of  Prussia,  pic- 
ture commemorating  event,  425 ;  his 
qualities,  426;  reorganization  of  the 
army  in  opposition  to  Prussian  Par- 
liament, 427-429;  Bismarck's  per- 
sonal influence  over  him,  427-429, 
440 ;  his  attitude  toward  the  Hohen- 
zollern  candidacy  for  the  Spanish 
throne,  453-457;  De  Gramont's  ef- 
forts to  humiliate  him,  455;  crowned 
German  Emperor  at  Versailles,  462- 
464,   468;   his  death,   503 

William  II,  his  education,  genius,  and 
talent,  505;  his  activity  in  govern- 
ment affairs,  506 ;  his  methods  dis- 
tasteful to  Bismarck,  507 ;  the  break 
with  Bismarck  over  interview  granted 
to  Windthorst,  508;  Bismarck's  res- 
ignation, 509;  the  Emperor's  tribute 
to  Bismarck,  509;  criticism  of  his 
conduct  in  dismissing  the  Chancellor, 
510;  named  warship  after  Bismarck, 
512 

William  of  Orange,  assassination  of,  re- 
sponsibility of  Philip  II,  21,  56 

William  the  Silent,  tomb  of,  at  Delft, 
108 

Windthorst,  German  statesman,  leader 
of  the  Centre,  or  clerical  party,  486. 
490,   508 

Witchcraft,  its  origins,  138;  rise  of 
witch  persecution,  138;  papal  utter 
ances  against  witches,  138,  139,  142; 
"The  Witch  Hammer,"  a  code  of  per- 
secution, 140;  persecutions  in  Ger- 
many, 139-144;  Thomasius'  work 
against,  144-147;  end  of,  in  Europe. 
148 
See  also  Torture. 

Wollner,  German  cabinet  minister,  244, 
245,  247 

Women,  rights  of,  advocated  by 
Thomasius,    157 


THE 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

OF 

ANDREW  D.WHITE 

Illustrated  with  Five  Photogravure 
Portraits  of  the  Author 

THE  autobiography  of  the  Hon.  Andrew  D.  White  is  a 
living,  breathing,  inspiring  record,  not  alone  of  a  life 
which  has  been  a  powerful  factor  for  good  in  American 
growth  and  progress,  but  of  the  people  and  events  which  have 
shaped  American  history  and  thought  in  the  last  half-century. 
The  youth  White  was  an  unusually  eager  and  intelligent 
student.  The  young  man  was  earnest,  thoughtful,  and  of  much 
promise.  The  man  has  led  a  life  filled  to  overflowing  with 
active  usefulness  in  many  causes  —  education,  politics,  state- 
craft, diplomacy,  and  literature. 

Beginning  as  an  attache"  of  the  American  legation  at  St. 
Petersburg  in  1855,  Mr.  White  has  been  concerned  with  public 
affairs  all  his  life, —  as  professor  of  history  at  the  University  of 
Michigan,  State  senator,  for  twenty  years  president  of  Cornell 
University,  a  commissioner  to  Santo  Domingo,  Minister  to 
Germany  and  to  Russia,  member  of  the  Venezuelan  Boundary 
Commission,  Ambassador  to  Germany,  and  president  of  the 
American  delegation  to  The  Hague  Peace  Conference. 

In  the  midst  of  demands  that  would  have  overwhelmed 
most  men,  Mr.  White  has  found  time  for  impoi*tant  and 
valuable  writings  on  political  and  historical  subjects.  His  work 
has  brought  him  into  intimate  relations  with  very  many  persons 
of  note  in  this  country  and  abroad  during  the  half-century  of 
his  active  share  in  the  world's  affairs,  and  he  has  made  friends 
of  great  men  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

This  is  the  wealth  of  material  which  enters  into  the  making 
of  this  autobiography.  As  a  record  of  events  and  men  it  is  a 
model  of  proportion,  of  simplicity,  of  vividness.  The  two  hand- 
some volumes  are  a  contribution  to  American  history  standing 
well-nigh  alone  in  breadth  and  accuracy,  in  scholarship  and 
charm.     The  work  has  taken  enduring  rank  among  the  classics 

of  American  literature. 

Royal  octavo,  2  volumes  of  600  pages  each. 
With  full  index.     Price,  $7.50  net;  carriage  extra. 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

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